I saw that Florida passed a law requiring this. How should libertarians feel about this issue?
On one hand I can see how it's bad since it creates the impression that a drug-free person receiveing welfare is somehow more legitimate than a drug user when in reality the two are equally bad. It could seemingly also create a slippery slope where drug tests will be required for the receipt of other government services (which government may have a monopoly on) or even for tax exemptions/credits.
But on the other hand I can see how it could be good since it could decrease the number of people receiving welfare.
So, on balance, I'm not sure... thoughts?
And I forgot to mention another negative, that the tests themselves are paid for with tax money.
Whether a drug-free person receiving welfare is more legitimate than a drug user receiving welfare is a matter of opinion, of course. Many (if not most) people across the country would think the former is more legitimate than the latter. I think it's sad, but it nevertheless seems true.
From a purely financial-economics perspective, the question is whether money will be saved from this measure. At first glance, that's a question of whether the added cost of the drug tests (paid for, as you note, with tax dollars) is offset by a reduction in welfare payments. On closer inspection, the issue isn't so simple. In order to be effective, the drug tests need to be periodic - I'd guess at least once a month. They'd also need to be done on all welfare recipients. Furthermore, people may try to "game" the drug tests through various means. One way of "gaming" them would be to use drugs that leave no lasting traces in the body. In the final analysis, there's no way to predict whether this rule will raise costs or reduce them.
Given the above, it's fallacious to argue either for or against this law based on financial-economics expectations. To do so is to commit the logical fallacies of wishful thinking and fearful thinking, respectively. Still more important, however, is the fact that this law has no effect on the taxes levied by the Florida state government.
I imagine that this law was passed with an eye to the Florida state government's budget shortfall. The thing is, this law doesn't directly address that shortfall. At best, it may mitigate it - but at worst, it may enhance it (ceteris paribus). So it seems to me that this law was passed in order to give the appearance that the budget shortfall is going to be mitigated. In other words, this is just politics as usual. A clear-thinking person would ask why the Florida legislature doesn't just pass a law to cut welfare payments - among other spending items.
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This seems like a pretty terrible idea. Rejecting people because of false positives and medically prescribed drugs would cause a huge backlash from welfare advocates and lobbyists. False negatives, masking agents, and staying clean for a few days will also mean plenty of drug users will still get on the dole. The natural response to those problems would mean more exact testing done more often, more government workers to monitor the system, and a general rise in cost.
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This has all the hallmarks of a typical government program: it'll be inefficient, expensive and have no discernable benefits whatsoever.
You're not thinking about things politically. :P This law has discernible benefits to the politicians who proposed and voted on it. It may well satisfy the wishful thinking of people who are "concerned" about the state budget shortfall. I think that's what the whole "Do something!!!" mentality is all about. The thing done has to have some relevance - namely, it needs to be perceived by enough people that it could work. Again, this is based largely (if not entirely) on those people's wishful thinking.
The only way that we can truly cut weflare spending is to abolish the program or restrict the benefits that are offerred. There's no other way around it.
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I think this is a larger question that hasn't really been answered. The issue is that there is currently a monopoly on charity known as wealth redistribution where you are forced to pay for other peoples welfare in a way that may not be ideal or even decent. Health care is another area that has gotten to be monopolistic in the sense that people are forced to pay for other people's care. Because of this, policies like restricting fast food, smoking, etc. seem more appealing because these habbits lead to poor health which results in higher health care costs. And since taxpayers are writing the checks, they are going to vote to ban these bad habits. They are essentially going to become an insurance company. "Nope you're too fat, we can't afford you" "Nope, your too sick, we can't afford you", etc. From an economic standpoint, it might be cheaper to ban these things, but so what because there is no way of knowing how much the individual would have been willing to pay for each bad habbit. For example, maybe 49% of people are okay with paying an extra 50k to live as long as non-smokers. Too bad. It's like grouping health insurance for horrible dirvers and good drivers, and the good drivers saying to the bad drivers "sorry you can't drive." The problem is in the pooling of risk at equal costs. The ban is the result. The other result would be higher accidents, or higher obesity, or whatever. You can't win in this kind of monopoly. Take a welfare example: it might make sense then to tell welfare mothers: "You can't have more than one baby,because we don't want to pay for them" This could be disastrous if half the country is on welfare. Again, most of these these social controls would not be necessary though without monopoly. There would probably be some private charities with provisions requiring that you look for a job, buy preventative care, go to school, etc., but we don't have to worry about that because if they are not good, people wont contribute money to that charity and will donate to better charities. A major problem with today's monopoly charity is that we don't know if we are giving out too much money or too little money to the receipients. Its structure discourages job employment, family, honesty, etc.
Instead of actually reforming or changing (or just outright abolishing/rebulding itself) the gov;t really just creates more problems than it solves. If, people were allowed to voluntarily choose what type of system to live under then, however, I would argue that an organization drug testing recipients for benefits is okay. Only because big government is out of the picture. In a free(d) society a specific group of individuals helping those in poverty may decide that in order to recieve benefits they must take drug tests. These individuals who voluntarily choose to participate and pay into an organization(or system) that helps those in need on the condition that they drug test is fine because they're not forcing others to do the same. Other organizations(or systems) may decide that that they won't drug test, and this would appeal to groups of individuals who want to help the poor without making them take drug tests.
And, indviduals would be able to see what type of restrictions or welfare policy works the best.
In short, the free market handles welfare the best.
As individuals we have a right to privacy.
Whatever I have ingested is my own business.
I feel the same way for anyone on the dole.