After trumpeting the tuition freeze during his campaign as a commitment to college affordability, Gov. Scott Walker announced cuts to the University of Wisconsin System that will inevitability result in tuition increases after the election. After dodging questions about controversial right-to-work legislation during the campaign, he came out in full support of the policy afterwards. However, Walker is finally following through on one campaign promise. He promised to drug test public assistance applicants during the campaign and has now included those provisions in his biennial budget.

There’s a big problem, though: drug testing people on public assistance has been proven again and again to be immoral, unfair and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

When speaking in favor of this policy, conservatives play into the poverty and public assistance stigma, but the statistics contradict their blatantly false narrative. The numbers speak for themselves: in states where this policy was put into place, it was found that the number of people on public assistance using drugs was marginal. In Florida, for example, only 2.6 percent of the applicants tested positive for drug use. In addition, the most common drug used was marijuana, not hard drugs, such as heroin or methamphetamines.

In Tennessee, another state with a drug testing policy, only 1 of the 800 people who applied for welfare tested positive. According to the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 1 in 10 of the general population aged 12 and older had used illict drugs in the last month. This is a dramatically higher percentage than those on public assistance.

In fact, the percentage of drug-positive public assistance recipients was so low that the testing ends up costing the government more than the amount of money that would have been given in aid. In Florida, drug testing applicants ended up costing $45,780 more than the state would have given benefits.

One can’t help but notice the stark double standard Walker has when it comes to trusting the people who receive public funds. In reference to drug testing families and individuals using public assistance, Walker has stated, “We need people who are drug free.” However, a much higher percentage of government money goes to contractors and CEOs in contracts and subsidies than to those on welfare.

One of innumerable examples of this double standard is Walker’s collaboration with a private prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America.

During his time as a state legislator, Walker got thousands of Wisconsin inmates shipped to private prisons in different states, taking jobs away from correctional officers in the state. In addition, taxpayers ended up paying around $45 million to the unchecked and unregulated private company. Contracts like this vastly eat up more in taxpayer dollars — often costing hardworking Wisconsinites jobs in the process — than public assistance recipients ever will. If companies are going to use our hard earned tax dollars for private enterprise, shouldn’t they be drug tested too?

Families on public assistance are already stigmatized. Our system socializes those on public assistance to feel humiliation and embarrassment. We don’t need another government policy based on stereotypes that just aren’t true to further dehumanize them.

Furthermore, according to a recent report, Wisconsin ranked 38th in job creation and was ranked 10th in student loan debt in late 2013. We have numerous other issues in this state that are more pressing than carelessly throwing money at a policy for which every argument in favor of it has been debunked. The argument that it saves money to drug test people on public assistance has been proven false every time it’s been tried.

Those who argue that this proposal protects the sanctity of our tax dollars follow a clear double standard and only apply that logic when it’s to the detriment of Wisconsin’s most vulnerable families. The verdict is clear: drug testing people on public assistance isn’t moral, fair or economical.

August McGinnity-Wake ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in political science and economics.

Read the counterpoint from the College Republicans:

Point counterpoint: Drug testing public assistance applicants promotes freedom, workforce