Latest idiocy: Governor Nikki Haley (R-Obviously) wants to drug test people who get unemployment benefits.
In her words (and channeling her inner teenage cheerleader), "I so want drug testing. I so want it."
But, being a Republican, if the facts don't match the "common wisdom," she's more than happy to make shit up.
Fortunately, the Huffington Post reporter did that thing we used to call "journalism" and asked somebody if she was right."Down on River Site, they were hiring a few hundred people, and when we sat down and talked to them -- this was back before the campaign -- when we sat down and talked to them, they said of everybody they interviewed, half of them failed a drug test, and of the half that was left, of that 50 percent, the other half couldn't read and write properly," Haley said.
Jim Giusti, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, which owns the River Site, told HuffPost he had no idea what Haley was talking about with regard to applicants flunking a drug test.I'll give Haley a little bit of credit, though. She got the one thing right.
"Half the people who applied for a job last year or year 2009 did not fail the drug test," Giusti said. "At the peak of hiring under the Recovery Act we had less than 1 percent of those hired test positive."
The River Site doesn't even test applicants. "We only test them when they have been accepted," Giusti said.
"That's what we have in South Carolina," she continued. "We don't have an unemployment problem. We have an education and poverty problem."The rest is crap, but she's finally figured out one of the chief causes of unemployment. I mean, it's a shame that she couldn't have figured it out a couple of months ago, when she tried to slash education funding for the state so badly that the state Legislature, Democrat and Republican, overturned most of her budget and overrode her attempts to veto. But at least she knows it now, right?
Of course, Teabaggers don't care about facts; they care about ideology. Governor Rick Scott of Florida instituted a drug testing policy for unemployment, which didn't do the state a lick of good.The law, which took effect July 1, requires applicants to pay for their own drug tests. Those who test drug-free are reimbursed by the state, and those who fail cannot receive benefits for a year.The paper went on to calculate that Florida will save $40,800-$98,400, an amount which will be eaten up in staff hours and other resources in administering the program. Oh, and they're going to spend over a million dollars defending it in court. So, Rick Scott just cost Floridians more money that they don't have. So that's some awesome leadership, right there.
Having begun the drug testing in mid-July, the state Department of Children and Families is still tabulating the results. But at least 1,000 welfare applicants took the drug tests through mid-August, according to the department, which expects at least 1,500 applicants to take the tests monthly.
So far, they say, about 2 percent of applicants are failing the test; another 2 percent are not completing the application process, for reasons unspecified.
Cost of the tests averages about $30. Assuming that 1,000 to 1,500 applicants take the test every month, the state will owe about $28,800-$43,200 monthly in reimbursements to those who test drug-free.
That compares with roughly $32,200-$48,200 the state may save on one month's worth of rejected applicants.
Now, if you do the math, the national rate of drug use is about 8.9 percent of the population aged 12 or older. (The majority of those users are 18 or older, but that's like math and stuff, so screw that.) Now, if only 2-4% of the people applying for unemployment are drug users, that means that the unemployed population is actually using less drugs than the rest of America. (Maybe because they can't afford them - that might make sense...)
Obviously, Governor Haley can't do simple logic.
Logic is the enemy and facts are the game pieces you move around to avoid capture -- and of course you get to change the rules at any point in the game.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to write about that Florida drug testing scam, but an exploding head is a terrible thing to witness particularly when it's your own head.
Governor Ricky, the Artful Dodger, of course weasled out of being prosicuted for the biggest medicare rip-off in history ( I mean really, who thinks a CEO should bear any responsibility for what his corporation does? ) so there's little to stop him from giving more gifts to his gang. Drug testing is quite lucrative, you know and it's only Socialism when you help people, not when you milk them dry, so why the hell help people get off drugs so they can get a job when you can just squeeze more money out of the public with this disgusting scam?
But as to Floridians not having money -- this is a two tier state and 10, 20, 50 million dollar homes across the street from trailer parks are common. Far more trailers than mansions, of course, but there's so much money here it means very little to be a millionaire in Florida -- what, only one billion? Marinas filled with endless rows of 10 million dollar boats and thousands living under bridges or camped out in the swamps and dumpster diving for breakfast. Just like the good old days.
But those are the real Americans Republicans like to talk about and that's how Mammo - I mean God wants it. The plantation owners and the serfs and serfs shouldn't vote because that's Democracy and Democracy is Government and the scariest word in the English language is Government doncha know?
Sorry - I do get pretty worked up about this disease that's eating my country and please forgive me if I can't refrain from conjuring up images of Anthony Babington now and then, (inviting the wrath of that jurrassic reaper who lurks here,) but even drawing and quartering may be too good for some of these two-legged spirochetes.
Nameless,
ReplyDeleteCheerleader indeed. My guess is that these tea-morons in high places are exercising their lust for cruelty against the downtrodden. If they had even the slightest humanity or experience with substance abusers, they would understand that people hooked on heroin or abusing meth are NOT going to "have it together" enough to apply for any kind of benefits, and they probably haven't been employed anytime lately, either. Heroin, for instance, is a zombie drug -- it simply turns the user into a fix-getting machine; fix, feel great for an hour or so, sleep for a long time; fix, etc. It's an all-consuming, soul-destroying regimen. Only in the foetid, vile little imagination of a teabagger would such a desperate, sad, confused self-medicating individual show up on the unemployment line.
This hardly qualifies as a scientific obsrvation, but people just one step above poverty seem to be the most critical of those one step below -- as though to make the distinction between their virtue and the others' lack more distinct.
ReplyDeleteHaving worked half my career in Human Services (welfare worker) I encountered time and time again the public considering Unemployment Compensation recipients in the same boat. They're not. One has to have a work history to even be considered for UC, further, it has to be employer who caused the unemployment, not something the worker did. But GOP idology lumps them all into the "great undeserving" bucket.
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