Republican bill would chop Federal Unemployment Insurance more t

I have no problem with being drug tested as part of the requirements to get unemployment insurance benefits, as long as the costs of these tests (including, for example, transportation) are funded by the governmental organization that mandates that I take them; the results are accurate and fair; and the testing process is not made to become so burdensome as to interfere with the job search. Some of my unemployed peers have prescriptions, and allowances should be made for those people whose depression or stress levels require them to remain medicated under a doctor's care, in order to remain healthy enough to work.

Drug testing the unemployed doesn't make any sense, unless we also drug test the employed, those on social security, and those on welfare, as well. The unemployed will simply be forced to qualify for other programs - social security, based upon any now-substantiated drug addiction; or welfare, based upon the alternative of starving out their children because of their now-substantiated drug addiction. These programs should also consider the drug-addicted to be ineligible, if we are to remove this cost burden from the American People. And, after all, if the employed are made ineligible for unemployment insurance by their drug addiction, then they and/or their employers should not be required to continue paying unemployment insurance premiums for an insurance that does not and will not cover them. I'd like to suggest that the first employed people to be drug tested for this purpose, should be members of Congress, and that, as public servants, the results of these tests should be made available to the those who pay for their employment benefits; the American People. I suppose that, in fairness to the children who might be made to suffer for the addictions of their parents, we should also provide foster homes for their children, when we remove them from these programs - the alternative will likely be a substantial increase in street crime and juvenile mortality.

I also have no problem with being required to become better educated, so long as that education is meaningful and useful, rather than serving as a distraction from the job search effort. I would also ask that allowances be made in the unemployment benefit program to allow recipients to attend this education without sacrificing their eligibility for benefits, as is often the case with the training programs that we find for ourselves.

I would like to point out that if every unemployed person has at least a G.E.D, then the value of that level of education remains questionable, as employers will almost certainly be forced to differentiate candidates based upon either some other criteria, or based upon a higher educational standard - so I fail to see how this approach increases total employment. Rather, it seems more likely that this approach might balance the playing field in favor of the currently-unemployed, when competing for available jobs - thus displacing the currently-employed, but shortening the period of overall unemployment. Some of the currently-employed, after all, may not yet have a high school education, so at least until everyone does, this might tip the balance slightly in favor of the unemployed, in the job market. Perhaps it would be more beneficial if this program educated everyone in it to the level of college graduation, or even post-graduate education, in order to extend the benefit of this approach. Imagine the benefit that might result if the government funded the education of every person, up to the Doctoral level. Even the very affluent could take their turn at employed and unemployed life, and the fellow that pumps your gas would be as well-educated and qualified as your doctor.

I understand the desire to place responsibility for being unemployed, on the people who are in that condition - and certainly, some of the blame for it probably rests with some of those who must live with it. But the math simply doesn't work, to place all of the blame, there, and I think that if members of Congress or judges had to suffer drug testing along with everyone else, it would rapidly become a Constitutional privacy issue. More education might help, but only if there were enough of it to attract jobs back into the United States, and away from the third world nations to which they have gone - and a G.ED. isn't enough. Moreover, if you've ever worked with State-run job search programs, you probably already know why most unemployed people don't use them, or use them only to the extent that they are required to - the jobs are awful (think migrant farm worker, and the attendant, ridiculously low, performance-based, below-minimum-wage pay rates); too far from home to make economic sense (if you make $8/hr for four hours of work per day, it doesn't make sense to drive 80 miles each way to work; it puts you in the position of paying more for the privilege of working than you make); or the listings are so out-of-date that the jobs are all filled by the time that you find the listing. Improving public transportation might help; I have had to pass on any number of jobs for no better reason than that, after a couple of years being unemployed, my car no longer runs well enough to reliably get me to the job, even if I get it.

I understand - I really do - but this isn't the solution to the problem. This is the same approach that we have traditionally taken, to the homeless problem - sweep it under the rug, give it just enough money to look as though we have some humanity, and hope that they'll just die off, move away, find their way into jails and/or mental hospitals, and stop bothering us. The difference is that the unemployed are still sober enough to get mad about it, and do things like "Occupy Wall Street", and vote. Maybe someone should point that out to Mr. Camp.