IR,
Agian, its idiotic to equate deductions with welfare. If the government ceased to exist, the homeowner would keep his money, but the welfare recipient would have no money. If deductions ended or taxes went up, the homeowner will have less and if welfare goes up the reciepient has more. Allowing someone to keep more of something is not the same as giving them something.

WIthout deductions, our ecomony would cease to work. Thats not saying some are not bad or do not achieve the desired goal, but they must exist on some level or the cost of production would be unbearable. Take a builder. Can he deduct the cost of land and raw material? What about the cost of labor? Advertising? General overhead? When we get into questionable material is when we talk about things like deduction on equipment or client lunches. Where the legitimacy ends is the question is? But they all still involve keeping something not recieving something. If you can't understand that you are truely an idiot.

Now on the drug testing, perhaps where bluewater is going is the real answer. If we actually had social workers that checked up on children and had the authority to remove them in bad situations, then the problem would be moot. The second the recipeint was not providing the adequate care for the child, the child would be removed. If the peson had excess funds available, then the checks could end too. No need for the test or to end cash checking, just do the real job of following up on the true reason the checks are being paid out rather than try to take the easy way out.