Title:
Michigan legislators want poor people to pee in a cup
Message:
Michigan’s legislature is sadly considering resurrecting a
tactic to make poverty even more humiliating by forcing welfare recipients to
submit to drug testing. Sponsored by Rep. Jeff Farrington
(R-Utica), HB
5223 would require poor people to submit a urine sample as a precondition for
receiving benefits. The bill would not require testing of government
contractors, executives of corporations who receive multi-million dollar tax
abatements, or other recipients of taxpayer dollars who aren’t poor.
Please
ask your legislators to oppose this wasteful, discriminatory legislation.
I could
tell you about how similar programs have been ruled
unconstitutional in other states, don’t
actually save money, and unfairly
stigmatize the poor, but I’ll let the Daily Show do it better (and
funnier) than I could:
As yesterday’s
Ann Arbor Journal points out, Farrington’s patently unconstitutional bill
would actually cost Michigan taxpayers more than it would save since, like previous
efforts in Michigan, it would be challenged and defeated in court. The bill is
also a first in that it requires all applicants to pay for the cost of the
test, pass or fail. That’s right – even if you pass, the cost of the test is
deducted from your benefits.
Please take
just a minute to tell
your legislators that you don’t approve of wasting money by picking
on the poor.
