With Governor Scott Walker making his exit in January, Wisconsin Republicans have moved to reinforce a number of wish-list items on his conservative agenda, and, in a controversial lame-duck session last week, the state legislature passed bills aimed at limiting gubernatorial power.
Among those bills was one requiring drug tests for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which critics say will stigmatize and restrict the use of public benefits for thousands of poor Wisconsinites. The legislation, which protects the governor's longstanding crusade against the state’s SNAP program (known as FoodShare), will make it harder for Democratic successor Tony Evers to undo the overhaul, New Food Economy reports.
Despite Walker’s claims that they promote “self-sufficiency,” these statewide drug tests come with a big price tag—and very few results. Other states that passed similar laws requiring drug tests for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program found few recipients actually tested positive for drugs; in Florida, only 2.6 percent failed the test. Even so, seven states spent a collective $1 million on drug testing for TANF in 2015, Think Progress found.
[For more on this story by EMILY MOON, go to https://www.citylab.com/equity...nts-food-aid/577849/]
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