Not every welfare recipient is created equally. Nor do we all have the same agenda. I can only speak for myself and what I have contributed to the "stereotype" of welfare moguls across America. At the risk of incriminating myself by letting the cat out the back, I can only say by experience, that yes, drug testing would be in Americas best interest when receiving food stamps or any other help from the government. Other than the uniqueness of illness, physical, mental or otherwise debilitating conditions and single mothers/fathers, that would render the need for assistance, the other half of recipients are addicts of one form or another, then the answer to drug testing is a big fat YES!
Let's just say, food stamps are as good as cash when it comes to drug addicts and dealers. It may not be the same exchange rate but it's still valuable nonetheless.
I had my use for assistance when I needed it the most and without it, I would have literally been lost. I used my resources available to women with children to the highest degree. I am not ashamed of it, for I did work and reported my income as was required. For day care, food stamps, section 8 and medicaid for my kids and myself when I gave birth to my kids. Having an absent father for my kids was at best, the only thing I could do to survive was to be on welfare. Lucky for me, I was raised with higher expectations for myself and finding myself on welfare wasn't the end result to my lifestyle. I vowed I would only use welfare for as long as I needed it. When I started a new life in 2000, I set a goal of five years to get my life in order and off welfare completely. At the epitome of my welfare years, I had acquired all the resources of a recipient to not give myself a hand out, but a help up to where I needed to be. Self sufficient and reliant on my own abilities as a functioning working class citizen.
I worked full time as a hairstylist and at the same time put myself through Massage school. I knew having another trade under my belt would help bring more income to my household. At the age of 37, I relentlessly gave it my all. Being a single parent was hard but again, without the use of my resources I would not have made it and for that I am grateful. I had a beautiful three bedroom house which I paid partial rent for because of section 8, food stamps to fill the tummies of my kids along with their classmates that every now and again came and raided the refrigerator before I got home from work. It was all good. No child should be without food and I was happy to feed what I had for as many mouths it could fill.
Tho' I had a job, it was treated as only a means to pay off all my debt incurred from my marriage that ten years had built up. From evictions, to medical bills, credit cards and just bad debt. I was being garnished big time. My ex husband was not employed and the bills were mostly in my name anyways, so they never caught up to him. A mistake soon recognized and I wont do that again. Needless to say, after it was all said and done, I was happy to be debt free. When I was finished with school and working for myself as a (CMT) massage therapist and hairstylist, I found myself to be in a position where I can now fend for myself. I wrote a letter to the Health and Welfare to thank them for all the years they helped me. I was now on the other side of the fence and in the bracket of making enough money not to qualify for assistance. Therefore, I took myself off of Welfare and proudly, I might add, on the 5th year of the goal I had set for myself to be completely off assistance.
The need for Welfare in this country is not by any means a hand out, but by all rights, should be to help people get their feet on the ground. Respectively, people should be on it long enough to do so, not to live off it for the rest of their lives. Consequently, regulating it, is another story. Welfare Reform? I'd write one up if someone would actually read it...then again, timing is everything, maybe someday I will.
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