Common sense on welfare - The Washington Post The Post's premier bit of proof that Virginia Republicans have "lurched to the right" is a proposal that welfare recipients take drug tests. Right: It's only sheer, mad ideology for a state to ask those whose finances are so wretched that they must depend on the taxpayer for subsistence if they are also taking, recreationally, chemicals likely to render them still more wretched and unable to work. Ask yourself: Which employer would trust his customers or business to a drug abuser? Few. Which private-sector employers, then, test would-be hires for drugs? Most. How possibly, then, does a state help welfare recipients return to independence by deliberately overlooking their possible drug use? It doesn't. This isn't ideology, left or right. It is common sense. Alexander McIlheran, Stafford