With a White House and Congress controlled by Republicans, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is finally in their crosshairs. State lawmakers and bitter uncles have long complained about the freeloading “welfare queens” sucking America’s tax reserve dry by spending their government food subsidies on junk food and spending their own money on drugs. The simple solution, then, would be to administer drug tests to anyone receiving SNAP or similar welfare benefits. If they fail the drug test, they are disqualified from getting the financial assistance to purchase food.

There are countless issues with this line of thinking, based on the stereotype that those who receive subsidies are freeloading dope-smokers. Suppose some SNAP recipients do indeed use drugs. Should that deprive them or their children from assistance that feeds them? Many people on food assistance already feel shame or embarrassment for having to turn to the government to pay for meals. This sort of provision would discourage them even more from seeking the help they need. The whole idea behind any social safety net is to give people a tiny bump in the right direction by providing them the most basic goods they could not easily come by themselves. Few people who are too poor to afford food or water would have enough money to spend on drugs or booze.

If cold-hard dollars is the chief concern, cutting SNAP benefits is the last place to turn. Drug user or not, no single mother is going to bankrupt the United States’ budget buying Doritos and Mountain Dew with the limited money SNAP doles out. Taking a big chunk out of the military budget and the government could provide surf and turf for the whole population twice over. What is more, administering drug tests to the few million individual SNAP applicants will prove costly and inefficient. It would require a whole new stack of paperwork, lawyers and notoriously uninviting public servants (think the DMV). Also, one would assume that any person clever enough to game the SNAP system for thousands of dollars’ worth of grocery items could find a way to fake a passing drug test.

All this in mind, it is no surprise the Trump administration is tossing around this idea. It is straight out of his playbook: prescribe a seemingly commonsense solution to a nonexistent problem that his groupies think is destroying the country at their expense. It makes obvious his dwindling support in Washington D.C. and inability to collaborate with other power brokers to come up with any concrete solutions to complex issues. It matters little to his base, however, and he knows that. So long as he keeps kicking around ideas like this, based in vague prejudice and false assumptions about fellow Americans, his supporters will cheer. Luckily, if nothing else Trump has proven to be all talk, no trousers on everything, especially public policy.

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