New Assembly Committee Will Focus On Altering Public Benefits

The speaker of the state Assembly sent another signal on Tuesday that members of his caucus will focus on changes to public benefits when the Legislature returns to Madison in January.

Speaker Robin Vos announced the creation of a new Public Benefit Reform Committee. In a statement, Vos wrote, “We need to weed out fraud, waste and abuse to ensure that people who really need temporary assistance are getting it.”

Vos had already released an agenda for next session that includes a bill to require drug testing for public benefits recipients. That same agenda called for encouraging all public benefits programs to be administered through an electronic debit card that’s programmed to automatically decline at places like casinos, liquor stores or strip clubs.

Mandating drug tests for public benefit recipients polled well leading up to the last election, but it’s likely illegal under federal law. Federal courts have found it unconstitutional, and when the idea was tried in Florida, it cost the state more money than it saved.