TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) – A state lawmaker is proposing a bill to drug test unemployed Floridians collecting unemployment benefits. “Let’s make sure it’s going to people who truly are ready, able, and willing to work. People who can’t pass a random drug test really probably shouldn’t be collecting our unemployment money,” said bill sponsor Senator Mike Bennett, a Republican from Sarasota.
Last month the state of Florida paid out $117-million in unemployment benefits.
Bennett’s bill calls for 10 percent of those who file an unemployment claim to undergo random testing. Also, 10 percent of people already receiving unemployment benefits would be tested. Mary Ann Aiken of Wesley Chapel is unemployed and unopposed to the proposal. “If they’re getting these benefits and let’s say for instance they are a substance abuser, then that money could be actually be going to support their habit.” “We’re taking everyone who happens to be in this situation of not having a job, which are a lot of people right now, and we’re treating them as if they are potential drug abusers,” said Courtenay Strickland with the ACLU.
Leaving the unemployment office, Dorothy Odie explained how these days “the unemployed” includes “the hard-working” and people who’ve worked their whole lives. “These people that’s coming here, they’re working people that have been on their jobs. One man I met today, he’d been on his job 30 years. So, you’re labeling people,” she said.
My suspicious nature tells me this just might be designed to avoid paying unemployment benefits.
And I want politicians to be required to take the mini-mental state examination!
This is the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard.
Yeah! All candidates for, and holders of, public office should be drug-tested on a weekly basis!
All politicians should have to pass a breathalyzer test before being allowed to start a vehicle.
No exceptions. Stiff penalties. $200,000 fine for evasion, minimum.
Only after a full decade of this should any politician be allowed to vote on legislation imposing tests of any kind on citizens in a Republican, preemptive manner.
Of course, getting this law through the system is the real problem…
Could there be another simple explanation for his desire to introduce this legislation? Maybe he owns stock in a company that does drug testing.
What a fiscal conservative! 😉
Boo on this idiot.
and I am sure the company Mike Bennett bought would be more then happy to do so.
What an Ahole.
I find this particulaly annoying because unemployment is insurance that you’ve been paying premiums on. It’s not welfare, that’s why it only lasts a certian amount of time. I think Buzz’s ideas are spot on. What’s good for the goose.
Mr. Bennett and his staff should be held to the same standards he is setting for anyone who takes taxpayer money.
I can just imagine my 72 year old father’s reaction to having to go for drug testing to keep getting his UI check.
A glimpse into the future with socialized medicine.
OK, let’s pretend for a minute that this is justified in some way. How much is it going to cost to test these people, to make sure that the people randomly checked turn up for the test, and to do the paperwork to take people off unemployment? Is that cheaper than just paying the small percentage of people who are caught? If they test 10% of the people and if even half of them do get caught then they have still only lowered the number of people receiving unemployment by 5%
Nice troll, MikeN, Of course, Mike Bennett, is a Republican.
11,
Pathetic, really…
I think all elected public servants should automatically be tax audited every year and subjected to drug testing.
It would help them be “closer” to the people.
# 11 MikeN said, “A glimpse into the future with socialized medicine.”
Might not be a bad policy. Keep costs down.
#16, Yep.
“You had trans-fats last month. No free care for you!”
or
“You smoked last month. No free care for you!”
or
“You broke your leg snow skiing . . . that is not an approved activity for someone of your skill level. No free care for you!”
or
[insert other worse case scenario]
#10 Why is your 72 year old father collecting unemployment?
What’s wrong with this? When you get hired for a job you usually have to under go a drug test. So if you are using drugs while unemployed you are not serious about finding a new job and shouldn’t be receiving the benefit.
I have no problem with drug testing the lawmakers as well.
A piss test cost between $5-$8.
Can’t see how anyone would be against this. This is a good incentive to not do drugs.
As someone commented before… ALL public employees, ESPECIALLY elected officials, should be required to take and pass drug tests before, and during their term in office. Period. Not ALL employers require drug tests, so claiming that a drug user can’t get a job is wrong. And I’ll agree with the writer who says, “its insurance, and anyone who pays the premiums, should receive the benefits.” Period.
“A piss test cost between $5-$8.
Can’t see how anyone would be against this. This is a good incentive to not do drugs.”
That statement is incredibly ignorant. You’re not factoring in the legal cost, the manpower cost, or the simple social cost. A “simple” piss test like the ones used here are open to all sorts of interpretations – that’s why they’re simple, they’re meant to weed out the “definitely nots” from the maybes, not the “yeses” from the rest of the population. A “False positive” (or plain and simple, a bored and/or careless tester) could very well mean sending someone who was on unemployment insurance straight on down the endless road that is welfare. And to what end?
The costs simply do not outweigh the benefits on this one.
The O’Bot’s are coming out of the woodwork!
ha!
This will be dropped when the unemployed Bush staffers claim executive immunity privileges when ordered to report to the P&P board for testing.
I have an idea.
How about creating jobs for the unemployed instead of finding ways to cheat them?
Like that good buddy deal with the banks and their UI credit card scam,thats another bag over the head mugging with the convenience fees crap-ola!
What they want is for everyone to go and work at the new manufacturing jobs,manufacturing Mac burgers and Freedom Fries for minimum wage that is.
Whatever will They do with all the money they make?Woot!
Drug addicts should be out on the street earning a living by robbing people, not living off the dole like lazy bums.
22,
If the costs represent a sprawling bureaucracy designed to denigrate and humiliate honest people, then there is no cost too high.
@Billy Bob
What is your address? I need to put you on my robbery list.
#21/26, Wait a minute. We can put stipulations on CEOs when they take bailouts but we can’t put stipulations on private citizens when they take bailouts?
What kind of crap is that. Oh, that’s right — it’s war on the wealthy.
And FYI, most medical insurance has the kind of stipulations I mentioned in #17. If you say you are non-smoker and you smoke, you can be DENIED. Some life insurance will not pay out if their is known risky behavior, etc. So, when you start talking about UI being insurance that should pay no matter what, you should consider the private sector already does it.
People who think the government won’t place those kind of restrictions in place if we ever go full up socialized medicine are living in the dream world.
Heck, the latest stimulus package has Biden (I believe it was him) saying that certain, expensive medical procedures are to be removed from medicare’s coverage — for cost reasons.
#28, Imaginary Dream World Loser.
People who think the government won’t place those kind of restrictions in place if we ever go full up socialized medicine are living in the dream world.
The topic is NOT health care insurance. This is an insurance fund regulated by the governments that the employees pay into. It is not a welfare scheme anymore than my car insurance is.
Keep dreaming poser.
28,
Which citizens are getting bailouts? Last time I looked into EI / UI, the workers PAID into it and can receive a small fraction of it out. Are you claiming that AIG et al all paid into a government fund that would guarantee all their junk debt+++++?
You are a prototypical American. You love your corporations, and you’ll whore yourself for them because you think they are “free enterprise”… not even batting an eye when they are given tax incentives to LEAVE their country, or setup offshore enterprises to take advantage of tax free setups, but socialized health care is anathema to the American ideal. Pathetic.
Why don’t you go play the old Ronald Reagan album on socialized health care while you burn a Soviet flag?
# 30 Named said, “You are a prototypical American. ”
Successful & free? Unlike people in your country…