This Democratic congresswoman wants to drug test the rich

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published 17 June 2016

Anyone who wants to claim $150,000 or more in itemized deductions when filing their taxes should have to submit to a drug test, says Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) — and she has proposed legislation in the House to that effect.

The bill is conceived as a response to Republican efforts to drug test low-income welfare recipients. "Such baseless attacks against the poor inspired me to draft the Top 1 Percent Accountability Act of 2016," Moore explained. She specifically objected to House Speaker Paul Ryan's decision to announce his poverty plan in front of a drug treatment center, imagery Moore argues presents a "false narrative" about the poor.

She says she is serious about passing the bill and "would love to see some hedge fund manager on Wall Street who might be sniffing a little cocaine here and there to stay awake realize that he can’t get his $150,000 worth of deductions unless he submits to a drug test."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.