Tag: Washington state

Categories
national politics & policies

A Dollar for Your Stimulus

Remember Robocop? The clobbering of the bad guys by the cyberonic cop was a tad too bloodthirsty for my taste. And the satire wasn’t exactly as subtle as Huxley’s or Orwell’s. Still, today’s economic news makes me remember that weird game-​show line, horsily bellowed throughout the 1987 flick: “I’d buy that for a dollar!” 

Fast forward to 2009 and dire economic times, and the question hangs there. What can you buy for a dollar?

Answer? Subsidy.

Washington state politicians have just sent hundreds of thousands of checks for … one dollar each — yes, just a buck — to the state’s poorest residents.

Lots of those residents have no bank account, and thus it will cost the recipients more to cash the check than the amount of the check. So what on earth are the Evergreen state politicians thinking?

Well, there’s method to their madness. 

Remember the nearly trillion-​dollar so-​called stimulus package Congress just passed? Apparently, there’s some rule that says if you’re a food-​stamp recipient and you get at least one dollar in energy bill assistance, this qualifies you for even more federal assistance.

So, Washington legislators mail out completely ridiculous, wasteful, dollar-​each checks to “prime the pump” of the federal money machine — proving that the bailouts are not only lunatic themselves, but the cause of lunacy in others.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom

Privacy Means No Random Drug Tests

Your privacy rights vary from state to state, as citizens of Washington State may have just found out to their surprise.

In a tiny rural county in the Evergreen State, a public school had required random drug tests of its sports participants. Since not everyone wanted to pee to play, the case found its way to the court. In mid-​March the issue was decided by the state’s Supreme Court. The state’s guarantee that “No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law,” was held to nix the program.

There has to be reasonable suspicion to require drug tests, at least in Washington.

Urinating into a cup, on demand, is a breach of privacy. Random demands for this were held by the court to be “warrentless.”

Some think random drug testing of children is a great idea, liberties and constitutions be damned. I prefer freedom. It is demonstrated criminal behavior that warrants the intrusion of police power. Not mere generalized suspicion.

And let’s be frank: random drug tests are there only to inspire a general level of fear, leading (it is hoped) to abstinence from the use of prohibited drugs.

You may fear drugs so much that you want your kids to live like that. I don’t.

In one state, at least, “students do not ‘shed their constitutional rights’ at the schoolhouse door.” What about your state?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.