Welfare Requirement
Your Urine for a Welfare Check
By Daniel Muniz

I work for a living. I have a job in which I am responsible for performing certain tasks on a day to day basis and I have to get them done. As a result, I am given a paycheck for my effort. As a way to make money, I feel that this is a pretty good arrangement that works fairly well for me. I work and I get a paycheck which enables me to feed my family and it also allows me to pay my bills and to pay off other expenses.

But here is an interesting requirement about my place of employment and for just about every other place I have worked at in the past. In order for me to get a job that gives me a paycheck, I had to provide a urine sample for a drug test. And furthermore, I had to pass the test so I can obtain that job. Flunking a drug test automatically prevents me from getting the job I applied for.

For me, I have absolutely no problem with drug testing and I fully understand why so many companies and governmental entities require it for all of their employees. They don’t want to hire a junkie. In today’s legal environment, employers are fully accountable and liable to the people they give a paycheck to while they are doing work under the scope of their employment. They don’t want to have that kind of liability on their hands if they employ a drug addict. And that is a very reasonable expectation when money is involved.

Now here is something else that is peculiar about my paycheck. I have to pay taxes.

A big chunk of my money is withheld from each and every paycheck and it is sent directly to the federal government. My mortgage company also withholds a portion of every mortgage payment I send them which they then place in an escrow account so that they can pay my property taxes for me. Additionally, just about everywhere I go to spend money, there is some kind of consumption tax that adds on to the cost of my purchase. And finally, there are a number of products and services that have some kind of hidden taxes already tucked away like gasoline.

Death and taxes are about the only things in life that you cannot escape.

As for taxes, the government cheerfully takes my money and redistributes it as it sees fit.

In our society, we expect our government to do something useful with our money, like paying the salaries of government employees such as police officers and teachers. We also expect the government to build roads, maintain national defense, and do lots of other things that are now part of our modern civilization.

Although I may disagree here and there about how the government goes about spending my money, I don’t have a problem with the concept of paying taxes that end up paying for all of these services. However, it is natural for me to expect them to be done more efficiently.

As a result, I do have a problem with the government handing a paycheck to someone who doesn’t have a job. That is called welfare.

I do take into account that there are the aged and the infirmed as well as a few extraordinary situations in which certain people cannot ever be expected to obtain a job. With extenuating circumstances, I can honestly say that I don’t have a problem with people in special cases receiving welfare.

However, there are plenty of capable able-bodied people who can work and can get a job but they just don’t happen to have any employment. I understand that there are unexpected emergencies in which there are individuals who are in dire need of government assistance. Again, I do not have a problem that if their situation is a legitimate emergency and they need the government to hand them money.

But I do have one stipulation.

Since I had to take a urine test in order for me to get a job that gives me a paycheck, then the people who do not have a job but who are receiving a welfare check ought to be required to do the same thing. I passed my drug test which allowed me to get a job so it is not too much to ask that welfare recipients provide a urine sample and pass a drug test in order to remain on the government dole.

All of us breadwinners should not expect anything less because after all, we have a job and a portion of each and every paycheck as well as some of the other taxes we pay is financing all of these welfare checks.

The bottom line is that if a welfare recipient fails the urine test, then he or she should automatically be denied from receiving government assistance. After all, I definitely will not get the job I applied for if I cannot pass a drug test so it shouldn’t be any different for the people who expect the government to give them a welfare check.

Now I am not passing any judgment on welfare recipients just like my past and present employers did not pass any judgment on me. A drug test is simply a requirement to receive a paycheck. And that requirement ought to be the same for anyone else who is going to receive a welfare check.

Any opinions or views expressed herein belong solely to the author and does not represent any employer, organization, political party, governmental agency, or any other entity and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site owner or its participants.