Drug test the rich, says Wisconsin congresswoman

House Speaker Paul Ryan inspired
Gwen Moore to change script against poor

She’s trying to open the conversation government handouts and who is getting what.

Thursday, Milwaukee Democratic congresswoman Gwen Moore introduced the “Top 1% Accountability Act.” 

Over the past year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and others have pushed that welfare recipients be required to take a drug test to receive benefits, including unemployment and food stamps.

Moore’s bill aims “engage the wealthy in a conversation about what fair tax policy looks like,” she told the Guardian.

The bill would require any taxpayer claiming itemized deductions over $150,000 to submit to the IRS a clean drug test. Otherwise, they would have to take the lower standard deduction. A plan that would only affect incomes over $500,000.

“We spend $81 billion on everything – everything – that you could consider a poverty program,” Moore said. But just by taxing capital gains at a lower rate than other income, a bit of the tax code far more likely to benefit the rich than the poor, “that’s a $93 billion expenditure,” she added. “Just capital gains.”

The savings for states that drug test those receiving benefits hasn’t panned out. In fact, it has cost states more money.

“Probably because they can’t afford it,” Moore said, adding she is “sick and tired, and sick and tired of being sick and tired, of the criminalization of poverty. … We’re not going to get rid of the federal deficit by cutting poor people off SNAP. But if we are going to drug-test people to reduce the deficit, let’s start on the other end of the income spectrum.”

This bill looks to flip the script. 

“We might really save some money by drug-testing folks on Wall Street, who might have a little cocaine before they get their deal done,” Moore said.

“As I’ve said time and time again, the notion that those battling poverty are somehow more susceptible to substance abuse is as absurd as it is offensive,” Moore said in a statement. “If anything, our nation’s opioid crisis continues to underscore how substance addiction knows no social, racial or economic distinctions. The time has come to stop vilifying vulnerable American families for being poor and start focusing on the policies that will help create an economy that works for everyone.”

Moore’s fight looks to be inspired by House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican. 

“I respect Speaker Paul Ryan,” Moore wrote on Facebook. “I consider him a friend, but when he used a drug rehabilitation center as the setting to announce his party’s so-called anti-poverty platform (a plan that consolidates programs like nutrition assistance, housing assistance, and child care into misguided block grants), it was clear we needed to change the tone of this national conversation.”

The government loses about $900 billion in revenue to tax expenditures every year, which mostly flow to the wealthy, according to the Congressional Budget Office, writes ThinkProgress.org.

“As a strong advocate for social programs aimed at combating poverty, it deeply offends me that there is such a deep stigma surrounding those who depend on government benefits, especially as a former welfare recipient,” Moore said in a statement. “It is my sincere hope that my bill will help eradicate the stigma associated with poverty and engage the American public in a substantive dialogue regarding the struggles of working- and middle-class families.”