Creeping in from the "vulnerable citizen" to everyone is not just rhetoric. Our state Legislature is considering mandating drug-testing for anyone collecting unemployment benefit, Medicaid, or Food Stamps*. (Unemployment is an employer-funded insurance program with Federal minimums.) The drug testing will make sure that anyone taking pain killers or psych drugs will be easier to discriminate against.
* Food Stamps are a weird mix: they are means-tested; they provide scrip which can only be spent on food (not diapers, condoms, or beer), and they subsidize U.S. agribusiness.
I just came back from a transportation related meeting where a City program we'd advocated hard for has been "thrown under the bus." *groan* Hand to God, Richard Nixon is beginning to look like a decent choice right now.
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Creeping in from the "vulnerable citizen" to everyone is not just rhetoric. Our state Legislature is considering mandating drug-testing for anyone collecting unemployment benefit, Medicaid, or Food Stamps*. (Unemployment is an employer-funded insurance program with Federal minimums.) The drug testing will make sure that anyone taking pain killers or psych drugs will be easier to discriminate against.
* Food Stamps are a weird mix: they are means-tested; they provide scrip which can only be spent on food (not diapers, condoms, or beer), and they subsidize U.S. agribusiness.
I just came back from a transportation related meeting where a City program we'd advocated hard for has been "thrown under the bus." *groan* Hand to God, Richard Nixon is beginning to look like a decent choice right now.