Yes or No on Walker budget items #7

In a piece at Urban Milwaukee, Steve Walter posits 12 Key State Budget Decisions with brief descriptions from Governor Walker’s 2017-2019 biennial Wisconsin budget and asks if we are for or against. I will take a stab at each one…one at a time:

7.Food stamp work requirement: Walker is recommending a pilot program that would require “able-bodied” adults with children between ages 6 and 17 to either work or be in job-training programs, and to undergo drug testing, to continue to receive Food Stamps. Yes/No

First, this is ludicrous. Most people on food stamps probably are working and not making ends meet. Maybe he could offer them one of the 250,000 jobs he has yet to create. And I don’t know where he’s going to dig up job-training programs if he keeps cutting budgets for education and maintains caps on property tax levies for technical schools. And drug testing? In every environment where this has been tried it costs the state more than it saves in food stamps going to drug users. End of story. These are all wastes of time and there is no return on investment here…how’s that for using business double speak.

Second, what the flock is this doing in a budget measure? There might a couple of dollars involved but this smells to high heavens like a policy decision and not budget. That alone makes this a none starter.

Previous posts:
Yes or No on Walker budget items #6
Yes or No on Walker budget items #5
Yes or No on Walker budget items #4
Yes or No on Walker budget items #3
Yes or No on Walker budget items #2
Yes or No on Walker budget items #1

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