Looks like big government, quacks like big government, but, strangely, it's a Republican's idea, so it's actually small government.
From Annie Lowery at The Washington Independent, here, via Ezra Klein, here:
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has proposed an amendment to the jobs bill requiring that recipients of unemployment insurance or welfare benefits get drug tested before they get their checks.
As Ezra Klein put it, "How many urine samples can a small government process?"
Of course, Senator Hatch doesn't want to drug test other groups of people who receive federal money, like, say, recipients of corporate welfare. Or, maybe, we could make the perks holding office contingent on drug tests--though I imagine that Hatch might take umbradge at that."
But these people are above reproach; it's the poor who are less-than, and it's the poor for whom suspicion is the norm.
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