Dusty
2008-05-11 19:21:02 UTC
http://mensnewsdaily.com/2008/05/11/why-the-states-dont-collect-child-support-and-never-will/
Terri Lynn Tersak
Why the States Don't Collect Child Support Arrearages and Never Will
May 11, 2008
As most of True Equality Network's (TEN) readers know we are a group with
over 40,000 members comprised mainly of women. The women of TEN live and
breathe the problems with child support issues every day of our lives. Some
as recipient custodial parents, others as the wives/significant others of
male child support obligors, and other as the parents of the prior two
groups.
There is no doubt our child support has major problems and it has become one
of the most polarized issues of present day debate. We understand that there
is a wide range of concerns that affects everyone involved. But no group
suffers more than our children.
However, objective research and the fact that every governor has cut funding
for child support enforcement since 1999 by as much as 32%. This provides
concise evidence that the Federal incentives under the failed "Child Support
Incentive and Performance Act" (CSPIA) actually pays the states more money
not to collect child support arrearages than is does for collecting them and
that most of the people screaming about the problems with child support are
missing the most critical point; the fighting is all about the money, not
about our children.
To add to the complexities of the issue, FOX has announced a new show,
called "Bad Dads." This show will be based on the long standing myth that
men are the sole offending group causing all of the problems with child
support.
CSPIA is an extremely complicated incentive system that could barely be
described in a series of reports, never mind the sound bites we Americans
are accustom to getting our information through. Therefore, in that spirit
here are a few points in compact communiqué format;
1) The US Census Bureau reports that 90% of fathers with joint custody,
79.1% of fathers with visitation rights, and 44.5% of father with no
visitation rights pay their child support in full.
2) Parents who are wrongly denied visitation with children don't pay
child support regardless of the enforcement actions taken over 60% of the
time.
3) Less than 5% of male child support obligors who legitimately qualify
for federally required downward modifications in their child support orders
are granted reductions.
4) The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of
Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) reports that 70% of all outstanding child
support arrearages are owed by obligors' earring less than $10,000.00 per
year. Most of the arrearages from this group remain unpaid after ten years.
5) DHHS-OCSE reports that approximately 5% of all outstanding child
support arrearages are owed by obligors earning over $40,000.00 per year and
100% of the arrearages owed by this group are paid within ten years.
6) US Census Bureau figures show only 57 percent of moms and 68 percent
of dads required to pay child support pay all they owe.
7) The most effective and cost effect method of child support
enforcement is enforcement of custody and visitation orders.
8 ) The most common method of wrongly reducing a parent's time with
their children is through false claims of abuse.
9) Since 1999, every state has cut state level funding for child
support enforcement by as much as 32%.
10) False claims of abuse are so pervasive our states have started passing
laws making it a criminal act to do so (The sad thing is; filing false
claims of abuse is perjury and perjury has always been a crime).
Now that the basics are covered, covering the details is in order. A
detailed review of the structure of federal child support incentive programs
can found in the report, "Abuses by the States of the Child Support
Performance and Incentive Act (CSPIA)." An
outline/abstract/oversimplification follows that by no means discloses all
the money the states make abusing everyone involved.
Some of the incentives for collected child support are allocated in an
"incentive payment pool" found in 42 USC 658(b)(2)(A) as follows;
IPP = Incentive payment pool =
(i) $422,000,000 for fiscal year 2000;
(ii) $429,000,000 for fiscal year 2001;
(iii) $450,000,000 for fiscal year 2002;
(iv) $461,000,000 for fiscal year 2003;
(v) $454,000,000 for fiscal year 2004;
(vi) $446,000,000 for fiscal year 2005;
(vii) $458,000,000 for fiscal year 2006;
(viii) $471,000,000 for fiscal year 2007;
(ix) $483,000,000 for fiscal year 2008; and
(x) for any succeeding fiscal year, the amount of the incentive
payment pool for the fiscal year that precedes such succeeding fiscal year,
multiplied by the percentage (if any) by which the CPI for such preceding
fiscal year exceeds the CPI for the second preceding fiscal year.
Call this incentive payment pool, "the big pie." The states compete for
their share of the big pie by adding up all the child support they collect,
apply a dizzying calculation that basically takes the collected money and
divides it by their administrative costs of collecting it. That resulting
ratio is apply against a percentage table found at; 42 USC 658(b)(6)(E).
If the cost-effectiveness
performance level is:
At Least,
But less than:
The applicable
percentage is:
5.00
100
4.50
4.99
90
4.00
4.50
80
3.50
4.00
70
3.00
3.50
60
2.50
3.00
50
2.00
2.50
40
0.00
2.00
0
The state may then apply that percentage of their collected child support
for the grab of the big pie, we'll call that, "their number." For example,
if a state collects 10 million dollars in child support and may apply 90% of
that, their number is 9 million dollars and that amount can be applied
toward the big pie grab. Each state figures out their number, the states
then add all their numbers together, we'll call this "the big number." Each
state figures out what percentage of the big number their number is and that
is the percentage of the big pie each state gets.
Arrearages; uncollected child support. Arrearage incentives are handled
differently and there are several incentives for various alleged enforcement
functions. Most comes from a match grant system that originally covered 66%
of the states' administrative costs for child support enforcement. In the
2005 federal budget cut, that was changed so as to reduce the match to 50%
over a five year period. The governors association raise the devil about
this cut, even though the governors were cutting their own budget funding by
as much as twice the percentage the federal incentive were being cut. That
is one of those things that makes you say, "What?!?"
Most, over 80% of child support is collected by automatic payroll
deductions. These "collections" have extremely low administrative costs over
the duration of the child support order. So any state that can't keep their
number based on 80% or more of their state's collected child support is
clearly run by imbeciles. Arrearages on the other hand can cost 7 to 11
dollars in administration cost for each dollar collected. Once collected,
those costs must be added to the states' administrative costs of their
collected child support, thus reducing their "cost-effective performance
level" and therefore, their piece of the big pie.
Arrearages also have a cost effective rating system for incentives, however
the arrearages are what they are and the cost are what they are, so the only
effective way to contain administrative costs on arrearage collections is to
cut enforcement funding and make no effort to collect the arrearages.
Well they can't actually just do this across the board. They do have to
collect some arrearages. But which ones? CSPIA is primarily based on the
amount of dollars collects, not so much on the percentage cases successfully
collect (although that does play a minor role). The higher dollars accounts
have a higher individual cost effective ratio, so they focus on these. As
you go down the income range of obligors, each state hits a break point
where they make more money not collecting an arrearage as they would
collecting. Moreover, at the bottom of the scale, they can actually loose
incentive monies by collecting these accounts.
The third "class" of child support monies is called, "Collected,
undistributed." That means the states actually collected the money, but did
not pay it to the parent who was expecting it. This collective amount of
collected but not distributed child support payments in every state is not a
trivial amount. The states will tell you they have no idea where these
parents are. They tell the parents expecting the money, it wasn't paid by
obligor and it sits in interest bearing accounts and the states get to keep
the interest. Another thing that makes you say, "What?!?" The flaw in this
little scheme is that not all divorced parent argue endlessly with each
other. Some do communicate, including on topics like, ". are your child
support payments coming out of your paycheck every pay period?"
A smart group of women got together and sued the state of Maryland. The year
the suit settled Maryland's collected, undistributed child support level was
one of, if not the lowest in the country! However, three years later is was
higher than ever. If Fox really wanted to do a show on a problem with child
support that would put more food in more children's mouths than any other
issue could in one series, Fox would produce a show that teaches women how
to band together and sue their state for the child support they collected
and are keeping, earning interest on instead of supporting their state's
children. Now that would be effective investigative journalism!
Every now and then the states round up a few delinquent child support
obligors and parade them before the cameras so the electorate thinks they
are actually trying to support their state's children. This is a farce.
This child support system of ours is one of the core pieces of our welfare
reform of the 1990's. It was supposed to replace public assistance programs
by collecting child support more effectively to help those in need. That is
what public assistance program's goals are, correct? There are two major
failure of our welfare reform;
1) The parents who need the child support the most get the least amount
of service, so our welfare reform is not replacing public assistance, it
simply abandoned the neediest and their children.
2) Many critics of public assistance claimed that just giving out money
without accountability creates illegitimate/out of wed lock births. Under
CSPIA, if the non-custodial parent makes a lot of money, the custodial
parent will get a great deal more money from child support then from public
assistance, with even less accountability. So one has to ask; if giving
money to someone with out any accountability is the problem, how did
Congress figure that giving them more money with even less accountability
would fix the problem? It didn't, out of wedlock birth is the highest in our
nations history. Another colossal failure of welfare reform.
Why doesn't Fox do a show about these problems? They affect more children
than non-payment of child support does. I'm sure there is a reason, but we'll
get to that a bit later.
In order for the states to get the biggest piece of the big pie as they can,
they need a lot of child support to be collected. To that end, they need a
lot of child support on their books. So, they must generate the maximum
amount of child support per case and being that their budgets depend on
those incentives, they have to find a way to maintain those levels in as
many cases as they can.
Because most states child support system is based on an "income sharing"
model and not a cost of child rearing model (although that does play a minor
role) they are stuck working with the parents income, as they are what they
are and the state cannot change that. The same applies for the costs the
parents have, they are what they are. The only thing they can control is how
much time each parent has with their children.
You can find child support calculators for every state online. Play around
with them sometime. You will quickly see the time a parent has with their
children, or lack of, has the greatest impact on the child support award.
Clever, isn't it?
This is covered in details in our reports; "How the Failures of Welfare
Reform Created Our Lawless Courts" and "Congressional Guidelines for Abusing
Women."
You have more than likely received countless email and phone calls telling
you how false claims of domestic violence are the root cause of the failure
of our child support system. This is absolutely true and is covered in great
detail in the reports referenced in this email. Likewise with the matter of
physical torture being used on delinquent child support obligors and those
accused of fabricated arrearages. The methods of torture include,
"water-boarding," hypothermic torture, and genital electrocution where stun
guns are applied to the victim's genitalia and then activated. Oddly, and
most disconcerting only a few short weeks after these heinous acts were
reported to the United States Congress, they voted to approve their use on
foreign detainees.
There are real dead-beat parents, but by and large their numbers are
exaggerated and the reasons they fall behind is grossly misrepresented.
Between the misrepresentation of the problems and the emotional
rationalization supporting idiotic and counter productive enforcement, the
bias against father has reached critically dangerous levels in both public
perception and within government policy. Social indoctrination has taken its
toll on our society. Today, the American male is taught to believe that
violent behavior by women is "comical" and that pusillanimous submission to
violent women means you are "sensitive" and therefore worthy of being with a
woman. While at the same time any type of violent behavior on the part of a
man requires they receive "social retraining" and/or are incarcerated.
Given the broad acceptance of this double-standard, male victims of domestic
violence are often denied service and as reported in the Final Report of the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the
Justice System (Chapter 10 page 398);
"Courts have also raised credibility issues about males alleging domestic
violence. Many people scoff, for example, at the very idea of a man seeking
protection under the domestic violence statute."
This While our States' domestic violence coalitions have been busy lobbying
against anything that might change the outcome of custody decisions that
take children by the millions away from their fathers. While disregarding
the purposes for which they were originally funded; the patterns for female
victimization of Intimate Partner Violence and Homicides followed the
national crime statistics trends and there has been no change to these
trends for women despite the billions of tax dollars we have wasted on
partner violence programs that have little effect, or exacerbate the
problem.
History shows that collective hatred is a powerful tool to unify a nation,
as tyrants have done for millennia against foreign countries or religions,
even when obviously false pretenses are used to garner support for absurd
and hideous actions.
Had our government created as much hatred toward terrorists as has been
generated against fathers and alleged spousal abuse over the past decade, no
would care what we were doing in Iraq, how much it cost or how long it would
take to do the job. Even if it were clear that every facet of the reasons
behind attacking was proven false, still, not only would no one care, they
would demand more.
This is not a guess. Based solely on ideology and government-funded,
industry promoted propaganda, today the generally accepted perception is
that only men are abusive in intimate relations and only women are abused.
Only men fail to pay child support and only women suffer from the system.
The long established facts clearly demonstrated by hundreds of peer-reviewed
research studies show that none of this is true. Yet radical ideologues
demand ever more draconian intervention with total disregard for due process
and the rule of law. There is no effective oversight of what the funding is
really spent on; and that the present system not only fails to serve, but
abuses the abused. Yet zealots demand more of the same and ever more
government funding. This is a classic approach of bureaucracies. If the
current approach does not work, the obvious solutions are to throw more
money at the problems and hire more bureaucrats to promote the party line.
Fox's proposed show on dead-beat dads places them among those promoting the
propaganda and violates its own slogan of "Fair and Balanced." These action
have destroyed cultures since the being of recorded history, does Fox want
ours to be next?
I am often asked why such a dysfunctional, abusive, and corrupt system is so
broadly supported. That answer requires some understanding of who benefits
from the continuation and expansion of the funding alleged to assist victims
of domestic violence and how they get the funding.
The most dubious result of the abuse of process is the substantial increase
in child support incentive funding to the states produced by permitting, and
even overtly promoting false claims of domestic violence as a valid reason
to keep one parent away from their children. As noted in countless books,
reports, and articles the time each parent has with their child has the
single greatest impact of the amount of child support awarded to the
custodial parent. It is also a well-documented fact that the use of false
claims of domestic violence and abuse of restraining orders is the most
effective way to reduce one parent's time with their child. Therefore,
increasing the awarded child support to the custodial parent and resulting
in highly augmented incentive funding to the states.
However, the custodial parents and the states are far from the only victors
in this reign of terror on the American family, parenthood, fathers, and our
civil liberties.
Child support is a source of tax-free revenue to the recipient of the child
support payments. This revenue is derived from the after tax (net) income of
the obligor. Therefore, the child support obligor is also the obligor for
the taxes due on this income, not the recipient.
Second, being that the child support system of our welfare reform is an
"income shares" model and as it has no meaningful basis in the cost of
rearing children, it amounts to secondary or "hidden" alimony.
Third, and by no means last, this tax free revenue to the custodial parent
requires no accountability to anyone for what it is used. Not even to the
child who it purportedly supports, or the non-custodial parent who has
rightfully paid the taxes due on the monies alleged to be used to support
their child.
In the preponderance of custody cases, it is the children's mother who
receives custody, which has created a windfall to the manufacturers of women's
products through an artificially created increase in the deposable revenue
for many single mothers. That fact, in itself, acts to create divorce,
discourage marriage, incentive out of wedlock births, and destroy the
children.
Seeing how these companies - such as manufacturers of women's clothing,
cosmetics, and accessories - stand to lose an incredible amount of revenue
if the system changes, it should be of no surprise to anyone that they are
some of the largest contributors to the opposition of presumptive equal
parenting laws and changes to our domestic violence laws. This is not
accomplished through direct action on their part, but rather through the
support of radical advocacy groups, the states' domestic violence
coalitions, and through the sponsorship of television programming and print
media that helps promote the myths that only men are abusers, only rich men
don't pay child support, and women are always and the only victims of abuse
and nonpayment of child support.
These myths continue to flood the airways and influence public perception,
government policies, and court guidelines despite long standing,
incontrovertible evidence that the complete reverse is closer to the truth.
(Two fantastic reads on how deep this corruption of public policy goes are
covered by Dr. Stephen Baskerville in his article, "From Welfare State to
Police State," and his book, "Taken Into Custody").
Consider these questions. If all abuse magically ended tonight at midnight,
how many tax dollar funded jobs would no longer be needed tomorrow morning?
What effect would that have on custody decisions? Who would lose revenue as
a result?
Any shift in custody policy will cost the manufactures of women products a
fortune. Their sales would drop and their stock values will plummet as we
see a shift in spending move away from a huge boon these companies have
enjoyed since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act and inception of
welfare reform, closer to a balance in spending between women's product and
companies patronized largely by men. Could this explain their support to the
Domestic Violence Coalitions efforts in lobbying against presumptive equal
parenting laws and promoting the myth of economic destruction if they are
changed?
Then consider the secondary beneficiaries of this one sided spending spree,
the media outlets where these companies advertise. Can anyone believe that
sponsored television shows like network news, talk shows, and entertainment
shows like Dr. Phil, The Montel Williams Show and the others would dare tell
the whole truth about the domestic violence industry? That could amount to
biting the hand that feeds them.
Could the television networks and their shows abandon the wealth the abuse
industry has delivered to them to adopt truly objective investigative
reporting? Or will they continue to assist in the destruction of the
American family while feeding us sound bites coated in eye candy and enjoy
the riches of the blood money gained by permitting male victims of abuse to
go unserved and women to be beaten, and then abandoned by the very system
built to help them and all abuse victims? This while the children are
completely abandoned and all under the perversity that above being done is
being in the "best interest of the child."
Fox needs to review its slogan and either change it to reflect its support
of ideological agendas based on fallacious arguments or figure out how to
continue in a manner where their slogan reflects the truth about what Fox
presents, as things are today, it no longer does.
Terri Lynn Tersak
Why the States Don't Collect Child Support Arrearages and Never Will
May 11, 2008
As most of True Equality Network's (TEN) readers know we are a group with
over 40,000 members comprised mainly of women. The women of TEN live and
breathe the problems with child support issues every day of our lives. Some
as recipient custodial parents, others as the wives/significant others of
male child support obligors, and other as the parents of the prior two
groups.
There is no doubt our child support has major problems and it has become one
of the most polarized issues of present day debate. We understand that there
is a wide range of concerns that affects everyone involved. But no group
suffers more than our children.
However, objective research and the fact that every governor has cut funding
for child support enforcement since 1999 by as much as 32%. This provides
concise evidence that the Federal incentives under the failed "Child Support
Incentive and Performance Act" (CSPIA) actually pays the states more money
not to collect child support arrearages than is does for collecting them and
that most of the people screaming about the problems with child support are
missing the most critical point; the fighting is all about the money, not
about our children.
To add to the complexities of the issue, FOX has announced a new show,
called "Bad Dads." This show will be based on the long standing myth that
men are the sole offending group causing all of the problems with child
support.
CSPIA is an extremely complicated incentive system that could barely be
described in a series of reports, never mind the sound bites we Americans
are accustom to getting our information through. Therefore, in that spirit
here are a few points in compact communiqué format;
1) The US Census Bureau reports that 90% of fathers with joint custody,
79.1% of fathers with visitation rights, and 44.5% of father with no
visitation rights pay their child support in full.
2) Parents who are wrongly denied visitation with children don't pay
child support regardless of the enforcement actions taken over 60% of the
time.
3) Less than 5% of male child support obligors who legitimately qualify
for federally required downward modifications in their child support orders
are granted reductions.
4) The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of
Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) reports that 70% of all outstanding child
support arrearages are owed by obligors' earring less than $10,000.00 per
year. Most of the arrearages from this group remain unpaid after ten years.
5) DHHS-OCSE reports that approximately 5% of all outstanding child
support arrearages are owed by obligors earning over $40,000.00 per year and
100% of the arrearages owed by this group are paid within ten years.
6) US Census Bureau figures show only 57 percent of moms and 68 percent
of dads required to pay child support pay all they owe.
7) The most effective and cost effect method of child support
enforcement is enforcement of custody and visitation orders.
8 ) The most common method of wrongly reducing a parent's time with
their children is through false claims of abuse.
9) Since 1999, every state has cut state level funding for child
support enforcement by as much as 32%.
10) False claims of abuse are so pervasive our states have started passing
laws making it a criminal act to do so (The sad thing is; filing false
claims of abuse is perjury and perjury has always been a crime).
Now that the basics are covered, covering the details is in order. A
detailed review of the structure of federal child support incentive programs
can found in the report, "Abuses by the States of the Child Support
Performance and Incentive Act (CSPIA)." An
outline/abstract/oversimplification follows that by no means discloses all
the money the states make abusing everyone involved.
Some of the incentives for collected child support are allocated in an
"incentive payment pool" found in 42 USC 658(b)(2)(A) as follows;
IPP = Incentive payment pool =
(i) $422,000,000 for fiscal year 2000;
(ii) $429,000,000 for fiscal year 2001;
(iii) $450,000,000 for fiscal year 2002;
(iv) $461,000,000 for fiscal year 2003;
(v) $454,000,000 for fiscal year 2004;
(vi) $446,000,000 for fiscal year 2005;
(vii) $458,000,000 for fiscal year 2006;
(viii) $471,000,000 for fiscal year 2007;
(ix) $483,000,000 for fiscal year 2008; and
(x) for any succeeding fiscal year, the amount of the incentive
payment pool for the fiscal year that precedes such succeeding fiscal year,
multiplied by the percentage (if any) by which the CPI for such preceding
fiscal year exceeds the CPI for the second preceding fiscal year.
Call this incentive payment pool, "the big pie." The states compete for
their share of the big pie by adding up all the child support they collect,
apply a dizzying calculation that basically takes the collected money and
divides it by their administrative costs of collecting it. That resulting
ratio is apply against a percentage table found at; 42 USC 658(b)(6)(E).
If the cost-effectiveness
performance level is:
At Least,
But less than:
The applicable
percentage is:
5.00
100
4.50
4.99
90
4.00
4.50
80
3.50
4.00
70
3.00
3.50
60
2.50
3.00
50
2.00
2.50
40
0.00
2.00
0
The state may then apply that percentage of their collected child support
for the grab of the big pie, we'll call that, "their number." For example,
if a state collects 10 million dollars in child support and may apply 90% of
that, their number is 9 million dollars and that amount can be applied
toward the big pie grab. Each state figures out their number, the states
then add all their numbers together, we'll call this "the big number." Each
state figures out what percentage of the big number their number is and that
is the percentage of the big pie each state gets.
Arrearages; uncollected child support. Arrearage incentives are handled
differently and there are several incentives for various alleged enforcement
functions. Most comes from a match grant system that originally covered 66%
of the states' administrative costs for child support enforcement. In the
2005 federal budget cut, that was changed so as to reduce the match to 50%
over a five year period. The governors association raise the devil about
this cut, even though the governors were cutting their own budget funding by
as much as twice the percentage the federal incentive were being cut. That
is one of those things that makes you say, "What?!?"
Most, over 80% of child support is collected by automatic payroll
deductions. These "collections" have extremely low administrative costs over
the duration of the child support order. So any state that can't keep their
number based on 80% or more of their state's collected child support is
clearly run by imbeciles. Arrearages on the other hand can cost 7 to 11
dollars in administration cost for each dollar collected. Once collected,
those costs must be added to the states' administrative costs of their
collected child support, thus reducing their "cost-effective performance
level" and therefore, their piece of the big pie.
Arrearages also have a cost effective rating system for incentives, however
the arrearages are what they are and the cost are what they are, so the only
effective way to contain administrative costs on arrearage collections is to
cut enforcement funding and make no effort to collect the arrearages.
Well they can't actually just do this across the board. They do have to
collect some arrearages. But which ones? CSPIA is primarily based on the
amount of dollars collects, not so much on the percentage cases successfully
collect (although that does play a minor role). The higher dollars accounts
have a higher individual cost effective ratio, so they focus on these. As
you go down the income range of obligors, each state hits a break point
where they make more money not collecting an arrearage as they would
collecting. Moreover, at the bottom of the scale, they can actually loose
incentive monies by collecting these accounts.
The third "class" of child support monies is called, "Collected,
undistributed." That means the states actually collected the money, but did
not pay it to the parent who was expecting it. This collective amount of
collected but not distributed child support payments in every state is not a
trivial amount. The states will tell you they have no idea where these
parents are. They tell the parents expecting the money, it wasn't paid by
obligor and it sits in interest bearing accounts and the states get to keep
the interest. Another thing that makes you say, "What?!?" The flaw in this
little scheme is that not all divorced parent argue endlessly with each
other. Some do communicate, including on topics like, ". are your child
support payments coming out of your paycheck every pay period?"
A smart group of women got together and sued the state of Maryland. The year
the suit settled Maryland's collected, undistributed child support level was
one of, if not the lowest in the country! However, three years later is was
higher than ever. If Fox really wanted to do a show on a problem with child
support that would put more food in more children's mouths than any other
issue could in one series, Fox would produce a show that teaches women how
to band together and sue their state for the child support they collected
and are keeping, earning interest on instead of supporting their state's
children. Now that would be effective investigative journalism!
Every now and then the states round up a few delinquent child support
obligors and parade them before the cameras so the electorate thinks they
are actually trying to support their state's children. This is a farce.
This child support system of ours is one of the core pieces of our welfare
reform of the 1990's. It was supposed to replace public assistance programs
by collecting child support more effectively to help those in need. That is
what public assistance program's goals are, correct? There are two major
failure of our welfare reform;
1) The parents who need the child support the most get the least amount
of service, so our welfare reform is not replacing public assistance, it
simply abandoned the neediest and their children.
2) Many critics of public assistance claimed that just giving out money
without accountability creates illegitimate/out of wed lock births. Under
CSPIA, if the non-custodial parent makes a lot of money, the custodial
parent will get a great deal more money from child support then from public
assistance, with even less accountability. So one has to ask; if giving
money to someone with out any accountability is the problem, how did
Congress figure that giving them more money with even less accountability
would fix the problem? It didn't, out of wedlock birth is the highest in our
nations history. Another colossal failure of welfare reform.
Why doesn't Fox do a show about these problems? They affect more children
than non-payment of child support does. I'm sure there is a reason, but we'll
get to that a bit later.
In order for the states to get the biggest piece of the big pie as they can,
they need a lot of child support to be collected. To that end, they need a
lot of child support on their books. So, they must generate the maximum
amount of child support per case and being that their budgets depend on
those incentives, they have to find a way to maintain those levels in as
many cases as they can.
Because most states child support system is based on an "income sharing"
model and not a cost of child rearing model (although that does play a minor
role) they are stuck working with the parents income, as they are what they
are and the state cannot change that. The same applies for the costs the
parents have, they are what they are. The only thing they can control is how
much time each parent has with their children.
You can find child support calculators for every state online. Play around
with them sometime. You will quickly see the time a parent has with their
children, or lack of, has the greatest impact on the child support award.
Clever, isn't it?
This is covered in details in our reports; "How the Failures of Welfare
Reform Created Our Lawless Courts" and "Congressional Guidelines for Abusing
Women."
You have more than likely received countless email and phone calls telling
you how false claims of domestic violence are the root cause of the failure
of our child support system. This is absolutely true and is covered in great
detail in the reports referenced in this email. Likewise with the matter of
physical torture being used on delinquent child support obligors and those
accused of fabricated arrearages. The methods of torture include,
"water-boarding," hypothermic torture, and genital electrocution where stun
guns are applied to the victim's genitalia and then activated. Oddly, and
most disconcerting only a few short weeks after these heinous acts were
reported to the United States Congress, they voted to approve their use on
foreign detainees.
There are real dead-beat parents, but by and large their numbers are
exaggerated and the reasons they fall behind is grossly misrepresented.
Between the misrepresentation of the problems and the emotional
rationalization supporting idiotic and counter productive enforcement, the
bias against father has reached critically dangerous levels in both public
perception and within government policy. Social indoctrination has taken its
toll on our society. Today, the American male is taught to believe that
violent behavior by women is "comical" and that pusillanimous submission to
violent women means you are "sensitive" and therefore worthy of being with a
woman. While at the same time any type of violent behavior on the part of a
man requires they receive "social retraining" and/or are incarcerated.
Given the broad acceptance of this double-standard, male victims of domestic
violence are often denied service and as reported in the Final Report of the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the
Justice System (Chapter 10 page 398);
"Courts have also raised credibility issues about males alleging domestic
violence. Many people scoff, for example, at the very idea of a man seeking
protection under the domestic violence statute."
This While our States' domestic violence coalitions have been busy lobbying
against anything that might change the outcome of custody decisions that
take children by the millions away from their fathers. While disregarding
the purposes for which they were originally funded; the patterns for female
victimization of Intimate Partner Violence and Homicides followed the
national crime statistics trends and there has been no change to these
trends for women despite the billions of tax dollars we have wasted on
partner violence programs that have little effect, or exacerbate the
problem.
History shows that collective hatred is a powerful tool to unify a nation,
as tyrants have done for millennia against foreign countries or religions,
even when obviously false pretenses are used to garner support for absurd
and hideous actions.
Had our government created as much hatred toward terrorists as has been
generated against fathers and alleged spousal abuse over the past decade, no
would care what we were doing in Iraq, how much it cost or how long it would
take to do the job. Even if it were clear that every facet of the reasons
behind attacking was proven false, still, not only would no one care, they
would demand more.
This is not a guess. Based solely on ideology and government-funded,
industry promoted propaganda, today the generally accepted perception is
that only men are abusive in intimate relations and only women are abused.
Only men fail to pay child support and only women suffer from the system.
The long established facts clearly demonstrated by hundreds of peer-reviewed
research studies show that none of this is true. Yet radical ideologues
demand ever more draconian intervention with total disregard for due process
and the rule of law. There is no effective oversight of what the funding is
really spent on; and that the present system not only fails to serve, but
abuses the abused. Yet zealots demand more of the same and ever more
government funding. This is a classic approach of bureaucracies. If the
current approach does not work, the obvious solutions are to throw more
money at the problems and hire more bureaucrats to promote the party line.
Fox's proposed show on dead-beat dads places them among those promoting the
propaganda and violates its own slogan of "Fair and Balanced." These action
have destroyed cultures since the being of recorded history, does Fox want
ours to be next?
I am often asked why such a dysfunctional, abusive, and corrupt system is so
broadly supported. That answer requires some understanding of who benefits
from the continuation and expansion of the funding alleged to assist victims
of domestic violence and how they get the funding.
The most dubious result of the abuse of process is the substantial increase
in child support incentive funding to the states produced by permitting, and
even overtly promoting false claims of domestic violence as a valid reason
to keep one parent away from their children. As noted in countless books,
reports, and articles the time each parent has with their child has the
single greatest impact of the amount of child support awarded to the
custodial parent. It is also a well-documented fact that the use of false
claims of domestic violence and abuse of restraining orders is the most
effective way to reduce one parent's time with their child. Therefore,
increasing the awarded child support to the custodial parent and resulting
in highly augmented incentive funding to the states.
However, the custodial parents and the states are far from the only victors
in this reign of terror on the American family, parenthood, fathers, and our
civil liberties.
Child support is a source of tax-free revenue to the recipient of the child
support payments. This revenue is derived from the after tax (net) income of
the obligor. Therefore, the child support obligor is also the obligor for
the taxes due on this income, not the recipient.
Second, being that the child support system of our welfare reform is an
"income shares" model and as it has no meaningful basis in the cost of
rearing children, it amounts to secondary or "hidden" alimony.
Third, and by no means last, this tax free revenue to the custodial parent
requires no accountability to anyone for what it is used. Not even to the
child who it purportedly supports, or the non-custodial parent who has
rightfully paid the taxes due on the monies alleged to be used to support
their child.
In the preponderance of custody cases, it is the children's mother who
receives custody, which has created a windfall to the manufacturers of women's
products through an artificially created increase in the deposable revenue
for many single mothers. That fact, in itself, acts to create divorce,
discourage marriage, incentive out of wedlock births, and destroy the
children.
Seeing how these companies - such as manufacturers of women's clothing,
cosmetics, and accessories - stand to lose an incredible amount of revenue
if the system changes, it should be of no surprise to anyone that they are
some of the largest contributors to the opposition of presumptive equal
parenting laws and changes to our domestic violence laws. This is not
accomplished through direct action on their part, but rather through the
support of radical advocacy groups, the states' domestic violence
coalitions, and through the sponsorship of television programming and print
media that helps promote the myths that only men are abusers, only rich men
don't pay child support, and women are always and the only victims of abuse
and nonpayment of child support.
These myths continue to flood the airways and influence public perception,
government policies, and court guidelines despite long standing,
incontrovertible evidence that the complete reverse is closer to the truth.
(Two fantastic reads on how deep this corruption of public policy goes are
covered by Dr. Stephen Baskerville in his article, "From Welfare State to
Police State," and his book, "Taken Into Custody").
Consider these questions. If all abuse magically ended tonight at midnight,
how many tax dollar funded jobs would no longer be needed tomorrow morning?
What effect would that have on custody decisions? Who would lose revenue as
a result?
Any shift in custody policy will cost the manufactures of women products a
fortune. Their sales would drop and their stock values will plummet as we
see a shift in spending move away from a huge boon these companies have
enjoyed since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act and inception of
welfare reform, closer to a balance in spending between women's product and
companies patronized largely by men. Could this explain their support to the
Domestic Violence Coalitions efforts in lobbying against presumptive equal
parenting laws and promoting the myth of economic destruction if they are
changed?
Then consider the secondary beneficiaries of this one sided spending spree,
the media outlets where these companies advertise. Can anyone believe that
sponsored television shows like network news, talk shows, and entertainment
shows like Dr. Phil, The Montel Williams Show and the others would dare tell
the whole truth about the domestic violence industry? That could amount to
biting the hand that feeds them.
Could the television networks and their shows abandon the wealth the abuse
industry has delivered to them to adopt truly objective investigative
reporting? Or will they continue to assist in the destruction of the
American family while feeding us sound bites coated in eye candy and enjoy
the riches of the blood money gained by permitting male victims of abuse to
go unserved and women to be beaten, and then abandoned by the very system
built to help them and all abuse victims? This while the children are
completely abandoned and all under the perversity that above being done is
being in the "best interest of the child."
Fox needs to review its slogan and either change it to reflect its support
of ideological agendas based on fallacious arguments or figure out how to
continue in a manner where their slogan reflects the truth about what Fox
presents, as things are today, it no longer does.