Drug Testing for Welfare Benefits: Both The Rich and The Poor Should Be Tested

Since the earliest days of government benefits, when homes of welfare recipients were inspected by social workers for cleanliness, the poor have been asked to prove their worth in order to receive help from the state. Have you ever stopped and thought about how much the rich benefits from the government and all the benefits they receive? Yet they’ve not once been drug tested. Those with over $100 million in assets received more government transfers in 2014 than the average household in the poorest 50%. Even without social security, the multi-millionaires got nearly two-thirds of the government’s transfers received by the poorest 50%. How is this so?

A graph provided by “The Atlantic- Corporation for Enterprise Development”, gives data from 2014 stating the total annual benefit from homeownership tax programs by income bracket. The data that was retrieved was astonishing. The bottom 20% of the income bracket in America was given $0.70 billion annual benefits for home ownership tax programs. While we compare this to the top 20% of the income bracket in America, which was given $69.9 billion in annual benefits form home ownership tax programs. There is a difference of $69 billion and 200 million. How is it that we drug test the poor when they receive such little money for home ownership taxes, much less the cost of living and then not drug test the rich whom receive much more than they need for their home ownership taxes and not even to begin the amount of extra money they already have. There is such an issue with the selected topic because there should be just as much suspected drug use for the rich as the poor, especially because of their abundance of money. Adam Chodorow comments, “After all, they do get more government assistance than the Medicaid and welfare beneficiaries. We want to check for narcotics use”.

Representative Gwen Moore has introduced the “Top 1% Accountability Act of 2016”, which requires drug testing for all tax filers claiming itemized deductions totaling over $150,000. The bill would require those with higher itemized deductions to submit a clear drug test to the IRS or take the standard deduction which is lower. The bill is supposed to highlight the fact that it’s not just the poor who receive aid. Aid to the wealthy comes mostly in the form of tax breaks, which allows them to keep the money that they wanted, and they would otherwise be required by law to pay to the government.

Drug testing the poor which have little to no income and have hardly ever turned up positive. Who’s to say the rich are using their excess money from housing subsides in a positive manner? For all that you and I know, they’re buying a few eight balls of cocaine right now. Possibly, a dime bag of OG Kush. It’s scary to think that this could possibly be true but aren’t rappers and rock stars most famous for their drug use? Lets drug test them too. Some might argue that the relief for the poor is different. The reason we provide benefits to the poor is to ensure they don’t starve and give the unfortunate help. The poor are limited on how they spend their money with the example of Food Stamps, Medicade, and WIC. While there are no limits on where the excess money goes that the rich receive and how it is spent. There is absolutely no reason as to why someone rich would truly have a problem with being drug tested to maintain their government benefits if they are using their money correctly and not on illegal drugs.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has introduced his anti-poverty plan at a drug rehab center in Anacostia which is a neighborhood in Washington D.C. The announcing of the poverty plan at a drug rehab center “is the continuation of this narrative that those who live day by day trying to find ways to make a living-those who live under the poverty line are somehow more susceptible to drug abuse than others”. Ryan said that, “this narrative needs to be squashed right away”.

'Wealthy Americans complain about 'entitlements' for the poor, but they keep collecting their own entitlements, to a degree that average Americans can only dream about'.

The service of the wealthy Americans increases relative to low income Americans, they benefit more and more from Medicare and Social Security. Its been proven by The National Institutes of Health study found that higher earners are increasingly more likely to receive such benefits like Social Security and Medicare over long periods of time relative to lower earners. Middle and upper-income Americans are even dipping into Medicaid, because of the program's accommodating asset-exclusion limits. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, '15 percent of the elderly in the middle income quintile receive Medicaid benefits, 8 percent in the upper-middle quintile receive benefits, and 5 percent in the top quintile receive Medicaid benefits.' 

Research was done by West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, that the poorest 20% of U.S. households get up to 3,000 in tax entitlements. The richest 20% of U.S. households get at least $18,000 in tax entitlements. Last but deficiently not least, the richest 1% of U.S. households get over $120,000 each in tax entitlements.

On top of everything else, there exists an incredible array of big-money tax breaks that primarily benefit well-positioned Americans. The mortgage interest deduction for second homes, which might even be a yacht or a dream home, or a costliness car. Another luxury home benefit with up to half a million dollars tax free when a couple sells their home. Deductions on rental properties for landlords, who are unlikely to be low-income people. The $127,200 limit on Social Security taxes, which benefits only the richest 10% of Americans. Tax breaks on 401k accounts, which are less likely to be owned by low-income people. Higher education financial aid, especially from the prestigious universities that admit more students from families in the top 1% than the entire bottom 50%. Miscellaneous entitlement perks, such as business meals, gambling loss deductions, tax preparation. It has been estimated that poor Americans pay about 25 percent in total taxes, while the 1% pays anywhere from 18 to 23 percent. Wealthy Americans complain about 'entitlements' for the poor, but they keep collecting their own entitlements, to a degree that average Americans can only dream about.

With given all the information above, from all the extraordinary benefits the wealthy receive, they should be drug tested to the same degree the poor should be. There are no statistics stating that the poor are commonly on drugs and this is why they are being drug tested. They are being drug tested to ensure that the poor keep a clean life while still receiving government benefits. It the wealthy receive much more benefits than the poor do, there is absolutely no reason to not drug test them. If this world is so hell-bent on equal rights, why not look in the mirror and enforce the same rules to everyone. If the rich are on drugs and still receiving money from the government why should they still receive it, when the poor don’t? Tax the 1% rich to ensure drugs aren’t being used with the same as for the poor.

Works Cited

• Buchheit, Paul. “The Absurd Amount of Entitlements That Go to Rich People.” Common Dreams, Common Dreams, 1 May 2017, www.commondreams.org/views/2017/05/01/absurd-amount-entitlements-go-rich-people.
• Chodorow, Adam. “If Republicans Want to Drug Test Medicaid and Welfare Recipients, They Should Test Bankers and Homeowners, Too.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 7 Apr. 2017, slate.com/business/2017/04/drug-test-the-rich.html.
• Semuels, Alana. “Drug Tests for the 1 Percent?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 20 June 2016, www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/drug-tests-for-the-1-percent/487649/.
• Kurtzleben, Danielle. “Why One Democratic Congresswoman Wants To Drug-Test The Rich.” NPR, NPR, 17 June 2016, www.npr.org/2016/06/17/482509519/why-one-democratic-congresswoman-wants-to-drug-test-the-rich.
• Carpentier, Megan. “Let's Drug-Test the Rich before Approving Tax Deductions, US Congresswoman Says.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 16 June 2016, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/16/gwen-moore-drug-test-rich-for-tax-deductions.