Republicans push drug tests for Bridge Card holders

House Republicans have put together legislation that they say will ferret out abuse of the program that provides food aid to 1.7 million people in Michigan, the Grand Rapids Press reports.

In a package of bills referred to the House Judiciary Committee this week, the Republican lawmakers suggest random drug testing for people who receive assistance, adding photo ID’s to the cards and requiring college students to supply information from their parents tax returns.

Critics point out that a Michigan policy to require drug testing of welfare recipients was struck down as unconstitutional in 1999 and that adding photos to Bridge Cards will raise the cost of the cards by six dollars.

The state expects to dole out $2.6 billion in food assistance this fiscal year, up from $2.1 billion last year. There has been a total $22.5 million in fraud found in the last four years, according to the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Human Services. More than $5 million of that came last year.

Rep. Roy Schmidt, D-Grand Rapids, agreed lawmakers need to be talking about issues of real importance to the state, such as jobs and properly funding education.

“I’m ready to work with my friends to clean up the kind of abuses mentioned in the bill package, but would be more enthusiastic if they would be more balanced in their approach to clean up abuses at every level of our social scale,” said Schmidt, who supported certain bills but opposed others, including random drug testing for constitutional and cost reasons.