{"id":879,"date":"2018-09-20T19:37:40","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T02:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=879"},"modified":"2018-09-20T19:37:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T02:37:40","slug":"dont-be-cruel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=879","title":{"rendered":"Don’t be Cruel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I forgive ignorance. I tolerate stupidity. I cannot abide cruelty.<\/p>\n

If you believe government programs foster or promote or have created slothful citizens, please, look in your heart and figure out where this sort of belief comes from. It is pretty widely held. I just heard a local politician espouse this tripe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I will not dispute there are lazy people. Sometimes I don\u2019t work as hard as I should, but that\u2019s not because of any government program. The idea that programs developed to ease the burdens we all may experience in life make us lazy and then more likely to wallow in our mistake or misfortune tells me what you think of human nature. And how we react to that concept can be cruel. Don\u2019t be cruel.<\/p>\n

When I first ran for office I met with a local group of union workers. Their demeanor and tone told me clearly, they wouldn\u2019t be voting for a Democrat. But I got them to tell me what was important to them. One young man asked, \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t Idaho drug test welfare applicants?\u201d I told him I\u2019d look into it.<\/p>\n

This is a popular refrain, since many believe those getting a handout from government are slothful, lazy and misusing any of our dear tax dollars. And if this is the case, we could then deny benefits to miscreants, saving tax dollars. I\u2019m all for cutting costs, so I studied it. Many states do such testing. It has told an interesting story<\/a>. The percentage of welfare applicants who test positive is well below the general population average. This drug screening program, especially when no treatment is available does nothing to reduce tax expenses, in fact the cost of testing far outweighs the money saved in denied welfare benefits.<\/p>\n

If your goal is to help people with a drug problem, you\u2019re going to have invest more. If your goal is to just deny benefits, be honest about it and just cut the program. But it would be best to look in your heart before you go designing any program, because that\u2019s where this all starts.<\/p>\n

The same can be said for the work requirements being suggested for Medicaid eligibility. Do you really think a single mother of three young kids should go without health insurance because she can\u2019t work more than 20 hours a week?<\/p>\n

There is a government program that has this wrong: Social Security disability<\/a>. I do understand that people can have disabilities that can keep them from doing some work. But to be declared \u201cdisabled\u201d then eligible for benefits the rules prohibit the disabled from \u201cSubstantial Gainful Activity\u201d. In the past 20 years we have seen our disability rolls skyrocket. About 5% of the workforce are classified as disabled. And they aren\u2019t counted in the unemployment calculations. Less than 1% of folks going onto disability ever return to the workforce. This program can be a cruel trap. A program to help the disabled should not discourage gainful activity.<\/p>\n

People can be cruel. Government can be cruel. People are government. Get involved, speak up, vote. Don\u2019t be lazy. Don\u2019t be cruel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I forgive ignorance. I tolerate stupidity. I cannot abide cruelty. If you believe government programs foster or promote or have created slothful citizens, please, look in your heart and figure out where this sort of belief comes from. It is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,4,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":882,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions\/882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}