By: Kelsey Thomas 
During a meeting of the General Assembly on Thursday, both the Georgia House and Senate passed their own unique bills requiring drug testing for welfare recipients. HB 668 and SB 292 require that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) beneficiaries over the age of 18 must be tested for illicit drugs before receiving benefits, with safeguards for issues such as children with parents with drug addictions. Other states have been mulling over these issues for some time. Florida passed its own drug testing requirements in July 2011. Florida’s requirement has recently been suspended by a state judge pending a state court decision on the law’s constitutionality. State Senator John Albers (R-Roswell) believes that the version of the bill he has sponsored eliminates the confidentiality issues that brought about Florida’s legal challenge on the legislation. However, constitutionality may not be the only challenge these bills face. The economic effect of this legislation must also be taken into account, and it is precisely that factor that has this conservative torn over these bills.
On average, about 3,896 adult Georgians received TANF benefits each month in 2011. For these recipients, TANF benefits are determined by the size of the family, net income per month, and assets held. Benefits generally fall into a range from $200 to $700. If we assumed that, like Florida, two percent of TANF beneficiaries tested positive for drugs, nearly eighty Georgians applying for TANF would be denied for at least a month until they could retest positive. In monthly savings, this would probably come out somewhere between $16,000 and $56,000 a month. Assuming this same number of recipients failed a drug test every month for a year, anywhere from $192,000 to $672,000 could be saved. These numbers could be higher if certain factors are altered. For instance, if Georgia TANF beneficiaries test positive for illicit drugs at a higher level than those in Florida, or if a number of current TANF recipients refuse the drug testing and thereby forego these benefits, the savings could increase exponentially.
However, the cost of testing TANF recipients every month should also be factored into the equation. For non-Medicaid recipients, the total cost of the proposed method of drug testing would be thirty dollars. This cost will fall onto the welfare beneficiaries, who will be reimbursed the full amount if they do not test positive for drugs. Those who test positive will not be reimbursed. If all 3,896 potential TANF recipients were drug tested, and only 80 tested positive, the net monthly cost to taxpayers of reimbursing those who passed the drug tests would be about $114,480, nearly double the monthly savings. This does not take into account the cost of state employees to administer the drug tests, the potential costs to the state of rehabilitating drug users who hope to be able to reapply for benefits, and the increased bureaucratic costs of expanding the Department of Human Services in this manner.
As a conservative, the fiscal and social implications of these bills have me on the fence. Socially, I believe that the government has a significant interest in both addressing the problem of drug addiction in our state and in ensuring that taxpayer money is not being spent to feed a drug addiction. Fiscally, the potential to protect taxpayer dollars from being spent in the wrong way does not balance with the potential loss in taxpayer dollars if this program is not as effective as its sponsors believe it will be. State officials estimate that the financial effects of drug testing welfare recipients to range anywhere from a net loss of $84,500 to a savings of $103,000 per year. If drug testing welfare recipients would ultimately result in savings and solves the state’s growing substance abuse problems, then the answer is clear and the bills should be made into law immediately. Unfortunately, there is no way to be sure of the effect these bills could have as law until they are implemented.
For Republicans, this presents a unique puzzle. Do we sacrifice our commitments to lower government spending and a less intrusive form of government in favor of social conservatism, or do we sacrifice our social values in favor of small government and fiscal conservatism? Whichever way conservatives lean on this issue, it seems as though drug testing for welfare recipients may present a potentially one-sided solution to a multi-faceted problem.
