Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans want drug tests for food stamps

Letter signed by 11 Rep. governors says
testing will make it easier to get jobs

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker really wants to get food stamp recipients drug tested.

Late last year, Walker signed off on a plan to drug test food stamp recipients.  

Other states have drug testing rules on the books but those are largely not implemented because of threats from the feds to yank funding for food stamps.

There’s also data from states implementing drug testing for welfare recipients that appears to be a money waste. ThinkProgress.org studied seven states for the below graphic. Read about it in detail here.

Walker and other governors have penned a letter urging some clarification from the feds on the issue, while insisting that states already have the right to drug test for food assistance.  

A bill just introduced in Washington D.C. – by a Republican congressman, signed by 11 Republican governors, including Walker – would allow states to legally drug test for food stamps.

In a letter, the group says “drug testing … doesn’t make it harder to get assistance; it makes it easier to get a job.”  

Wisconsin recently kicked 15,000 off of the food assistance program for not spending enough time getting job training or looking for work.  

About 800,000 in Wisconsin receive food assistance. That number swells to 45 million nationwide.