Drug-testing bill needs one change
Regarding the April 8 article ěDrug test for jobless benefits part of billî:
Rep. Harry Warren has come up with a stroke of genius. By having the employer pay for the testing, the new bill does three things.
A. It eliminates the argument that the unemployed cannot afford the testing.
B. It eliminates the argument which states the government cannot afford the testing.
C. Last, your employer normally has a good idea whether youíre doing drugs or not. This will give them the opportunity to have you tested and not pay for your unemployment check.
Harry, this is one of the best bills I have had the pleasure of reading. Unfortunately, you need to add one clause. All state employees, including House and Senate members, should also be subject to mandatory, periodic drug testing.
I used to oversee the drug testing for Charleston AFB. I have heard every argument and seen the testing procedures put to the test in court, time and time again. If the state uses gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) methodology, it is virtually fool proof.
Keep up the good work.
ó Rick Johnson
Salisbury
Bill could penalize laid-off workers
Let me see if I understand. To receive unemployment benefits, a person must actually have worked, contributed into the unemployment funds and had taxes taken out of his/her paycheck … right? And for whatever reason, this responsible, working person has become unemployed and has a right to receive benefits he/she paid into. Am I right?
Now, the state has decided that before this person can receive benefits from the money he/she has contributed, he/she could be made to take a random drug test, and if drugs are found, the benefits they paid will be discontinued?
Although I have been very fortunate to have never received unemployment, when I worked, unemployment taxes were deducted from my check. In other words, the state held a percentage of my money in case I became unemployed and needed it.
Something is wrong with this picture. We have a welfare system that is broke from giving individuals a check each month for doing nothing except use the system. We have generations of welfare families who have never worked but continue to use drugs, have babies and have an ěentitlementî mentality. We have illegal aliens who have invaded our country and applied for every ěfreeî service they can get. Neither of these groups has contributed into the system but receive the benefits working people provide.
In my opinion, the people who donít contribute should be the ones drug tested, not those who were formerly employed, tax-paying people. Wouldnít it make more sense to drug test the people receiving free services, rather than testing the people who have actually contributed? If they test positive, stop their free services.
How can the state withhold benefits from people who rightfully earned them? Perhaps we need to ask N.C. Rep. Harry Warren. If we can drug test people before they receive their own money, should the same rule apply to the people who receive free services working folks provide?
ó Margie Norris
Kannapolis
Older unemployed find closed doors
Thanks, Freightliner, for sending my job of 10 years to Mexico. Thanks, North Carolina, for cutting off my unemployment payments, the only thing that has kept me and my family alive and under a roof. Thank you, Loweís home improvment, for hiring me part time, then full time, only to lay me off after 33 days. Thanks, Windstream, for hiring me through a temp service only to lay me off after four months on the job. The years 2009 and 2010 and now 2011 have become the worst years ever for me and my family. Thirteen months have passed without a job and only three interviews in the last six months. Am I being discrimiated against because of my age (58)? Is it me? Did I say something wrong? Am I trying too hard (400-plus applications)? Is it tens of thousands of college-educated 30-year-olds looking for work? My three years of higher learning not enough? Guess not. Go back to school? Why? To be age 60 with a degree and still looking at the same prospects? Am I bitter, angry, discouraged?
Do I give up like thousands of other have? Anyone out there care? Anyone out there have an answer for me?
I have a well-rounded background with lots of good skills. Navy man, boiler tech, salesman for 10-plus years, commercial driverís license, class A, with hazmat endorsement, facilities maintenance management for five years. What good is any of it if all that is looked at is my age? Do you have an answer for me? Well, I have a answer for you.
I will not give up! I will not stop banging on doors until they open! I will not fall by the wayside like so many others have. I will not lose my home or my pride or anything else. I have worked all my life. I will prevail, and I will, with the grace of God, find work.
ó Ralph Thompson
China Grove
Tea Party must keep heat on politicians
I hope that the Republicans do not cave in to the Democrats and allow any bill to be passed that does not cut every cent from the budget that they were sent there to do.
The Democrats had all of last year to pass a budget if they had wanted to, instead of crying about Obamacare.
If the government shuts down, so be it, but it is not on the hands of the newly aligned House and anyone thinking so is still looking through Obama-tinted glasses.
Even though John Burke makes absurd remarks about the Tea Party and how it revolves around the Republican Party, if he would simply attend just one meeting, he would see that the Tea Party favors neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans.
And before Burke calls me a racist for despising everything that Obama has done to this country while in office, I want him to know that I would vote for Allen West, a man who actually was born in the United States and proudly served the United States military, for president right now. So unlike him, I prefer to consider what a person does or does not do, instead of foolishly following a certain partyís lines, when making comments, or voting for them.
Here is to the hope that the Tea Party keeps the heat on every person in any government position to remember that they work for ěWe the People,î all of us.
Harry Warren, you need to remember this as well.
ó Danny Warren
Gold Hill
Planned Parenthood a waste of tax funds
Planned abortion does not equate to ěparenting.î Between 2008 and 2009 alone, Planned Parenthood performed more than 650,000 abortions. Now, they are crying that if they lose funding, it will prevent women from receiving health care. I donít think an abortion is ěhealthy.î Planned Parenthood had a profit of $63 million in 2009. That should be enough for them to keep on killing babies without our tax dollars.
ó John Walls
Salisbury
A big disconnect on fair treatment
I have had a business phone with a major phone service for more than 20 years, with no bills ever paid late.
We canceled the land line this month because we rarely use it, relying on cell phones. When you call his old business number now, it refers you to ěa similar businessî in the area.
We called and complained about them using our number to advertise for another business and were told there was nothing we could do; they were within the law to do so.
Being legal and being right are not the same thing. Apparently, being a monopoly in business gives you the reins to treat customers, especially former customers, any way you want.
ó Tom Owens
Woodleaf