Honestly, I think you are jumping to conclusions when your statements assume that those on welfare are jobless and that they have put themselves in that position. Florida has implemented a law similar to the one you are very adamant about, and the results show that there are no tangible savings, did little to deter drug users, and there was an insignificant effect on the number of applicants for welfare.
Oftentimes, the common drug detected is marijuana, which is a ridiculous reason to call for statewide drug tests for since marijuana is much safer than alcohol anyway. One of the many examples is that while the CDC has recorded that 37,000 people die annually from alcohol use, the number of deaths by marijuana use is zero. I'm not saying that it is okay to use welfare money to buy more drugs, but drug testing is a poor method to lower the money spent on welfare.
If you want to spend the state's welfare money on those who actually need it, you should be more concerned about welfare fraud. Too many people hide their income so that they appear to be living in poverty or very poor conditions. This grants them eligibility to receive welfare while they add that governmental money to their hidden income.
Lastly, you assert that these drug tests will not increase federal spending. There are 333,435 people on welfare and it costs $12 per person, which equals a grand total of $4,001,220 for the implementation of a law that has proven to not work. What we must be holding our citizens responsible for is something like welfare fraud, not for this generalization that those on welfare are jobless and drug addicts. Besides, there are ways that drug users (if they are desperate enough to obtain welfare money) to pass drug tests.
Classmate's Blog stage 5 post: http://lonestarrepublicgovt2306.blogspot.com/2012/07/welfare-and-drug-testing.html?showComment=1344028373003#c2886181130552824178
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