Drug Testing Welfare Recipients

Republicans have such a need to attack the poor in our country.  (Okay, it's not just the poor, it's also women in general, and homosexuals, and minorities of any stripe, etc).  But states continue to attempt drug testing of welfare recipients because they continue to buy into the myth that poor people are poor because they use drugs. 

Well, rich people use drugs, too...but the use of drugs by poor people is being subsidized by the taxpayers, to paraphrase Florida governor Rick Scott (Republican, natch).  The hell it isn't being subsidized, but that's a blogpost for another day.  So he signed into law a bill that takes effect July 1st, to drug test welfare applicants in Florida. 

But the ACLU isn't going to let this happen without a fight.  Per Howard Simon, the ACLU in Florida,

"What (Scott) is doing is giving ugly legitimacy to an unfortunate stereotype that has been in this country for a couple of decades -- that all welfare recipients are a bunch of drug abusers,"

Even Idaho is not immune from that myth.  It crops up year after year, taking a lot of time and effort to determine, is it cost neutral, is it cost effective, does it give us the desired effect of not having drug users on public assistance, and can we get away with it legally? 

Republican governance is legalized craziness.  And poor people continue to vote for them, against their own self interests, why?  Because they identify with being rich, they crave and desire being rich, and they want to protect the rights and privileges that come with being rich, in case they ever get there.  Dream on, I'd normally say, but hey, this is America, and it can happen!