The Results of the Proposal is Negative

          In a chaotic state the nation’s economy is in, people are exceedingly concerned about what their tax dollars are paying for. A large amount of tax money goes to the US welfare system, designed to give financial aid to families and people in desperate need of assistance. With the large impact the welfare system has on impoverished families and tax payers, the proposition to enforce drug tests on welfare recipients has been controversial. I disagree with the suggestion to require drug tests of welfare recipients due to the high cost of the proposal, and the relatively low amount of recipients using drugs.

          With the huge economic debt, and ever increasing need to cut back on spending, the last thing that states and federal government need is another useless program or regulation to squander money on. However some people managed to have found just that with the idea to require drug tests from welfare recipients. According to the article “States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare” the drug tests the states pay for “costs up to $40, and the state will reimburse those who pass” (Sulzberger). When taking into consideration that in Florida “7,030 passed, 32 failed, and 1597 did not provide results” (Sulzberger) the drug tests, which would mean that just the state of Florida alone, could end up paying $280,000 for reimbursements to the participants who passed. And if the entire country took up this proposal, then millions of dollars would solely be wasted to the drug tests. To use these millions of dollars for the drug tests of the welfare system, rather than utilizing them for the welfare system itself is a preposterous idea. The high cost of the drug tests would not be so ridiculous, if it wasn’t for the uselessness of them due to the low amount of drug users among welfare recipients

          .  According to the report “Illegal Drug Use” by the Center for Disease Control, the percentage of people over 12 years or  older “with any illicit drug use in the past month: 8.7%”(CDC). When taking into consideration that “unemployed adults are about twice as likely” (Sulzberger) to use drugs compared to employed adults, we can conclude that around 17% of unemployed adults use drugs. However when looking at the welfare recipient drug test results of Florida that were provided, less than one percent of the recipients used drugs. However there were 1,597 results that weren't provided. Even if assuming that half of the non provided recipients failed their drug tests, which is probably larger than reality, than around 10% of the recipients used drugs. With this we can see that the large majority of people who receive welfare don’t use it for drugs, but rather use it to support families.

The argument that drug tests would save welfare dollars by preventing recipients from spending the money on drugs is completely nullified by the fact that the drug tests themselves would be at a much higher expense. Due to the high cost of the drug test, and low amount of drug users among recipients, we can conclude that these drug tests are a huge misapplication of valuable taxpayer dollars, and a waste of time.

  

Is the Risk Worth the Reward?

The world appears to be in the midst of both an economic and environmental crisis. Between these two lurking giants, the debate over the expansion of oil drilling lies. It appears that the decision to enlarge, or reduce the expansion of oil drilling will inevitably assist one of the problems, but greatly increase the harm of the others. When deciding if offshore oil drilling in the US should be increased, one must consider the potential benefits towards economics, and the potential hazards towards the environment.

The US economy is in a volatile state. A completely unpredictable market and a 9 percent unemployment rate are making the idea of expanding oil drilling extremely attractive. Offshore oil drilling could tremendously help the economy in multiple ways. One way it could help the economic problem is that it could give thousands of unemployed citizens a job and a source of income. With these additional people obtaining jobs, and making money, the money they spend at businesses and stores could benefit those businesses, and in turn those businesses could hire more people too. Another way oil expansion could help the economy is that with the additional oil in the country, oil prices would most likely go down. With lower oil prices, people would now be able to spend less revenue on gas, and spend their money in other places and businesses. Companies would also benefit because now with less money being spent on their delivery trucks, and tractor trailers, more money could be spent on products and hiring additional people. Although these benefits are a very likely outcome, there are some potential environmental problems.

          In 2010 an underwater oil valve in the Gulf of Mexico controlled by the company BP broke, pouring out millions upon millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf. With BP’s slow response time and ineffective solutions, the wildlife of the Gulf of Mexico was greatly impacted. Science Daily is a website that provides articles about modern day science related news. According to Science Daily’s article “One YearLater, Oil Spill’s Impact On Gulf Not Fully Understood” even an entire year after the oil spill the local bird population is still affected, “nearly all the young birds and a huge proportion of the adults had at least some oil on them.” This oil can cause dangers for the birds such as choking hazards and sickness. Some people hope to expand oil drilling to the Arctic Ocean. People must take the Gulf disaster into perspective when considering about expanding oil drilling to places such as the Arctic or other coastal regions. If an oil valve in the Arctic broke, it could be more devastating than the oil valve in the Gulf, due to the fact that a valve in the Arctic would be further away than a valve in the Gulf, and would most likely take more time to respond to. The additional oil could also damage the world’s global warming concerns. However although these are alarming concerns people must know that these are only possible concerns, and not definite dangers.