Let's Drug Test The Rich Before Approving Tax Deductions, Says US Congresswoman (theguardian.com)

Press2ToContinue writes from a report via The Guardian: "The [tax] benefits we give to poor people are so limited compared to what we give to the top 1% [of taxpayers]," Congresswoman Gwen Moore says. "It's a drop in the bucket." Many states implement drug-testing programs to qualify for benefit programs so that states feel they are not wasting the value they dole out. However, seven states who implemented drug testing for tax benefit program recipients spent $1 million on drug testing from the inception of their programs through 2014. But the average rate of drug use among those recipients has been far below the national average -- around 1% overall, compared with 9.4% in the general population -- meaning there's been little cost savings from the drug testing program. Why? "Probably because they can't afford it," says Moore. "We might really save some money by drug-testing folks on Wall Street, who might have a little cocaine before they get their deal done," she said, and proposes a bill requiring tests for returns with itemized deductions of more than $150,000. "We spend $81bn on everything -- everything -- that you could consider a poverty program," she explained. But just by taxing capital gains at a lower rate than other income, a bit of the tax code far more likely to benefit the rich than the poor, "that's a $93bn expenditure. Just capital gains," she added. Why not drug-test the rich to ensure they won't waste their tax benefits? She is "sick and tired of the criminalization of poverty." And, she added: "We're not going to get rid of the federal deficit by cutting poor people off Snap. But if we are going to drug-test people to reduce the deficit, let's start on the other end of the income spectrum."

Comments

Re:Apples-Oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Failed-Reading-Comprehension Man! Your work here is done.

Re:WTF?

[deKernel]

So let me get this straight....you want to drug test the people who are actually providing the money?

Seriously, this class envy has to stop.

Re:Congress

[DarkOx]

Good plan lets have civics exam before anyone is allowed to vote. No democrat will win an election ever again.

Sickness indeed...

[mi]

That is very, very broken logic and shows the sickness that lies in the government.

You are very right. It is a sickness, and it shows, how outright tyranny can sip in, when the government is allowed to do as much as it currently is in the Western world.

We had the early warnings — things, the government could not force you to do straight, it forced you to do by attaching strings to the tax-based wealth-redistribution:

• States were forced to lower speed-limits and otherwise alter their own laws on pain of losing Federal highway funds. What a way to sidestep the 10th Amendment!
• Male students applying for financial aid were forced to register with Selective Service.
• Retirees applying for Social Security where forced to also switch to Medicaire — decades before the infamous "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance" lie.

The ultimate manifestation of this would be 100% taxation with the government kindly allowing you to pay less in exchange for obedience.

Can also take the approach into criminal justice system — saving billions in law enforcement costs — by making it illegal to live above, say, 20 years of age. The government would, of course, grant annual waivers to the well-behaved — those, who "maintain eligibility"... Scaremongering? You bet — but this idea is the same in principle with the current one: tax everyone, but spend the taxes only on the obedient.