Gov. Scott Walker to form statewide pee database in his latest attempt to stick it to the poors

Rss@dailykos.com (hunter) · Saturday, May 07, 2016, 6:23 pm

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's presidential ambitions may have fizzled out long ago, but that just means he can rededicate himself to making life pointlessly miserable for his state's working residents. Or unemployed residents, in this case: While federal law bans states from drug testing those seeking unemployment benefits, he thinks he's found a loophole that will allow him to get around such irritating protections.

But in the meantime, he took steps this week to do as much as he can under his limited authority. On Wednesday he authorized new rules that allow employers to voluntarily submit information about drug tests they made people take as a condition of employment. If any of those employees end up seeking unemployment benefits but failed the employers’ drug tests or declined to take one, they can be denied benefits unless they agree to get taxpayer-funded drug treatment.

So he can't make unemployed workers take a drug test, but he's still interested in denying benefits to unemployed workers so maybe he'll just get the employers to require the tests and submit their own results on individual people to a state database. Nope, nothing creepy or Big Government about that. It'll be fun to find out how much taxpayer cash he'll be doling out to run this little Pee Exchange.

[P]ast experience from states that drug test welfare recipients shows they are anything but common sense. The positive test result rates are far lower than the drug use rate for the American population as a whole — last year, some states didn’t turn up any positive tests at all.

It’s a safe bet that's because people who don't have jobs can't afford a lot of drugs, while people like Scott Walker who have great big important jobs with high salaries can afford all of the drugs they want. But I digress.

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