Iowa Republican State Senator Proposes Drug Testing Child Support Recipients
2:30 pm - 04/13/2012
A favorite Republican pastime recently has been to demonize the unemployed by proposing that they submit to drug tests before collecting their unemployment insurance. Both at the federal and state level, Republicans have pushed for such a policy, even though, as it turns out, such requirements save barely any money and only prove that those on unemployment insurance are less likely than the public at large to be using drugs.
One Iowa Republican this week decided that such measures are not enough. During debate over Iowa’s budget, state Sen. Mark Chelgren (R) proposed that people who receive child support payments also be forced to submit to drug tests on the whims of the person making the payments:
The proposal came from Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa who said he was pushing the idea on behalf of an unidentified constituent who believed his ex was using child support money for illegal drugs.
A person paying child support under Chelgren’s proposal could require the recipient to a drug test every six months as long as they pay the costs.
“We shouldn’t be ducking our head and running away every time there’s a difficult issue coming up,” Chelgren said. However, following open laughter in the Iowa Senate chamber, Chelgren withdrew his amendment.
The Iowa Senate’s next task will be debating yet another Chelgren amendment. This one goes back to the standard Republican aim of forcing those collecting from state welfare programs to undergo drug tests. In Indiana, just 1 percent of those tested before collecting unemployment insurance or entering the state’s job training program during the final six months of 2011 failed their drug tests.
Source: Thinkprogress.
What an asshat. So, a buddy of his has an ax to grind about his ex, so this guy thinks it'd be fine to single out and humiliate what is mostly women getting a pittance from their children's fathers? Nice. If the women of Iowa are in situations like my sis-in-law, most of them aren't seeing a dime from their ex's, anyway. At least he got laughed down.
One Iowa Republican this week decided that such measures are not enough. During debate over Iowa’s budget, state Sen. Mark Chelgren (R) proposed that people who receive child support payments also be forced to submit to drug tests on the whims of the person making the payments:
The proposal came from Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa who said he was pushing the idea on behalf of an unidentified constituent who believed his ex was using child support money for illegal drugs.
A person paying child support under Chelgren’s proposal could require the recipient to a drug test every six months as long as they pay the costs.
“We shouldn’t be ducking our head and running away every time there’s a difficult issue coming up,” Chelgren said. However, following open laughter in the Iowa Senate chamber, Chelgren withdrew his amendment.
The Iowa Senate’s next task will be debating yet another Chelgren amendment. This one goes back to the standard Republican aim of forcing those collecting from state welfare programs to undergo drug tests. In Indiana, just 1 percent of those tested before collecting unemployment insurance or entering the state’s job training program during the final six months of 2011 failed their drug tests.
Source: Thinkprogress.
What an asshat. So, a buddy of his has an ax to grind about his ex, so this guy thinks it'd be fine to single out and humiliate what is mostly women getting a pittance from their children's fathers? Nice. If the women of Iowa are in situations like my sis-in-law, most of them aren't seeing a dime from their ex's, anyway. At least he got laughed down.
an unidentified constituent who believed his ex was using child support money for illegal drugs
GOSH, THAT'S A BRAND NEW ARGUMENT, I'VE NEVER HEARD IRRESPONSIBLE FUCKTARDS MAKE *THAT* ARGUMENT FOR WHY THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO PAY. Oh wait ....
You and your MRA buddies can fuck right the fuck off. Maybe we'll all get really lucky and you'll ALL fall in a sarlacc pit. Cause you know what? That money is REIMBURSING us for taking care of your children - WHEN you fucking send it. How about we make some more stringent regulations on COLLECTING child support? Maybe we could do things like collect the HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS that a CONGRESSMAN is behind on his payments. I mean, he makes the money, right? So why isn't he paying? MAYBE HE'S SPENDING IT ON ILLEGAL DRUGS. YOU BETTER DRUG TEST HIM.
Seriously, fuck these assholes.
Edited at 2012-04-13 07:46 pm (UTC)
Yes- the definition of small government. Everytime a constituent has a problem in their personal life, write a law for it! My sister won't do the dishes and I find that very annoying. Can we get on passing a law to force her to?
/gags
So because some deadbeat asshole has run out on his family and has to be FORCED to pay for the children he fathered, the mother should submit to drug testing? FUCK THAT. All my mom got was a measly $300 for THREE CHILDREN and there were years the money didn't come. And the one time my dad sent her a payment towards back support, it was from our great grandfather's life insurance policy, which he put in my father's name, because my mother supposedly "couldn't manage her money." Well, yeah, she couldn't manage what she didn't HAVE, for cripes sake.
Here's a little secret: my parents did illegal drugs when I was growing up all the time. Marijuana, cocaine, LSD, mushrooms, etc. It was never hidden from me, but it was kept private at the same time. Yet, I was always fed, there was always food on the table, and if there was only $200 left for the month, we got FOOD, not drugs. My parents were responsible in that regard. I always had clothes, usually a bed (our poverty had nothing to do with my parents occasional rec drug use and everything to do with a recession in the 80s).
I always had everything I needed for school and my father often picked me and my brother up from school on our bicycles and we'd ride home together. They paid their taxes, they (mostly) kept their jobs, and while there were some problems, they were never drug-addiction related problems. By every qualifier you can think of (paying taxes, maintaining a home, food/clothing) they were good parents and good citizens.
Let us not forget that drugs tests like these? Always looking for marijuana. It's fat-soluble and can be detected up to 2 months after even one joint. Most other "illegal drugs"? Any trace is gone in 72 hours. Even the more dangerous drugs like heroin. It's a war on marijuana (IMO, the least harmful of the class of illegal drugs) and not on any actual harm or addiction behaviour.
Thirdly, test for illegal drugs? Because addiction to perfectly legal drugs NEVER happens. (Vicodin, oxycontin, etc)
Of *course* there are parents out there who are addicts. Of *course* this is a bad thing. But crap like this? Does not in any way, shape or form deal with the actual issue of addiction and bad parenting.
My sis-in-law's ex does meth. He's driven on the shite and *wrecked his truck* while high, with their little boy in the passenger seat. He has had four warrants out for his arrest and has spent about three hours in jail total.
He continuously gets under-the-table cash-only jobs so he can say he's not working and can't pay support, and he generally isn't around when the kids visit - his girlfriend is the one who gets them, feeds them, etc.
He is a lying jackass who is working the system and my sis-in-law has to jump through humiliating hoops to get food stamps, and drive across the state to go to medicaide-approved doctors and dentists because she can't afford to self-pay. Plus our dear Gov. Blunt reduced Medicaide so she isn't even on it now, and her son couldn't get a summer job because that would put him 'over the limit' and they would take his health care, too.
Edited at 2012-04-13 09:17 pm (UTC)
who said he was pushing the idea on behalf of an unidentified constituent who believed his ex was using child support money for illegal drugs.
So you're believing one fucker who's probably lying over actual evidence? Oh whatever, of course you are. He's the father, and they never lie!
I feel like this guy needs a swift kick in the balls.
If I would've had my way, my sperm donor would've been paying a hell of a lot more than $300 over a 17 year period for my sister and I. $150 per child is nothing, especially when it comes to paying bills, buying food and clothing.
I know he tried pulling something like "she's on drugs" to get out of having to pay when my mother was in college, trying to make a better life for my sister and I.
omfg lol
But naw, why bother yourself with your own children?
Jesus tittyfucking Christ.
That's what they want, right? Why be coy about it?
I'm actually relieved more than anything that this assclown got laughed down. A tiny piece of faith in humanity = restored.
I've seen my mother repeatedly apply for and receive food stamps, social security, and monetary assistance from her church, claiming that my father doesn't pay enough support for her to be able to pay for the necessaries. The truth is that not only has he regularly paid support, but my mother has been using these resources to also pay for things like $50 designer boots for my sister, regular professional hair treatments for herself, and a PI (!) to spy on my father, as she's convinced that he's a threat to her, when in reality he wants nothing to do with her chaos and insanity. In this specific case, I am strongly in favor of my mother just stopping all of that and getting a job, not because it would relieve the financial burden on my father--I know that, all things being equal, he can afford those payments--but because it would give her something more productive and rewarding to focus on (though there is no question that it would have to be in conjunction with the therapy that she has needed for most of her life).
In conclusion, I am generally open to effective ways of reforming the child support payment system, even more so if they benefit both sides of the equation. Just as I in no way condone assuming that all women who are receiving (or supposed to receive) payments are using them improperly, so too do I not condone assuming that all men who have been ordered to pay don't want to do so because they are lazy, terrible fathers.
(Edited to fix verb tense.)
Edited at 2012-04-14 01:49 pm (UTC)
I'm going to venture that my experience is far more the norm than yours.