Drug testing for Welfare Recipients
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Drug testing for Welfare Recipients

Date: April 9, 2009
By: Rebecca Layne
State Capitol Bureau
Links: HB 30, the vote.

Intro: Welfare recipients would be up for future drug testing if a bill that passed through the House makes it through the Senate. RunTime:0:41
OutCue: SOC

The bill would require drug testing for work-eligible welfare recipients suspected of doing illegal drugs.

If tested positive, recipients would lose their welfare benefits for a year.

Democratic Representative Jeanette Oxford of St. Louis City says taking away a family member's share of welfare hurts the entire family.

Actuality:  OXFORD2.WAV
Run Time: 00:16
Description: I heard this described as tough love, and I believe in tough love. But you know what? To make tough love work, you gotta have some love to go with your tough. When you take $58 dollars a month away from a family living on $292 a month, Mr. Speaker, it is not tough love. It is torture. 

Despite Oxford's ardent opposition, the House passed the bill into the senate with a vote of 104 to 45.

Reporting from Jefferson City, I'm Rebecca Layne ... KSMU. 

Intro: Welfare recipients suspected of abusing illegal drugs would have to submit to drug testing if a bill that passed from the House makes it through the Senate. RunTime:0:46
OutCue: SOC

Recipients who test positive for controlled substances would be ineligible for state support for one year.

Republican Representative Tim Flook says people on welfare need to be held responsible.

 

Actuality:  FLOOK2.WAV
Run Time: 00:27
Description: We have to make decisions and comparisons between the $50 billion of tax-payer's dollars that we put in the last five years and with the services we've rendered. Is it too much to ask of an individual that we don't want you to use illegal drugs, that we want you to behave in a way that promotes you and your family and your society and behave in a way that allows me and others to come back and ask the public to continue to fund your program?

Representative Flook voted in favor of the bill, which was passed with 104 votes.

Reporting from Jefferson City, I'm Rebecca Layne ... KSMU.