Appeal the Criminalization of Fathers Caused By Unconstitutional Child Support Laws
Written by: Versie C. McClay © November, 2020. All rights reserved
The right of petition is expressly set out in the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people … to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
— from the First Amendment
The petition clause concludes the First Amendment’s ringing enumeration of expressive rights and, in many ways, supports them all. Petition is the right to ask government at any level to right a wrong or correct a problem.
Although a petition is only as meaningful as its response, the petitioning right allows blocs of public interests to form, harnessing voting power in ways that effect change. The right to petition allows citizens to focus government attention on unresolved ills; provide information to elected leaders about unpopular policies; expose misconduct, waste, corruption, and incompetence; and vent popular frustrations without endangering the public order.” By Adam Newton
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” – Tacitus
PROOF THAT CHILD SUPPORT LAWS ARE CRIMINALIZING FATHERS
“. . . In 1973, The Hague Convention on Recognition and Enforcement established an international view of cooperation in the enforcement of child support orders. In 1974, apparently lacking any sense of coincidence, Senator Russell Long “perceived a connection” between “fathers who abandon their children” and a growth in AFDC spending. This led to the original federal child support and paternity legislation enacted in January 1975 (17). Among other things, child support enforcement services were required for families receiving assistance under AFDC, FC, and Medicaid programs. (18)
The welfare community did not favor the legislation and only a few Senators spoke in favor of it. When it passed, it did so at least in part because it was tied to more popular social service amendments(19). When passing the legislation, President Ford contended that the provisions went “too far by injecting the Federal Government into domestic relations.” He complained of “serious privacy and administrative issues,” and promised to propose legislation to correct defects.(20) During the Reagan years, our new addition to the federal bureaucracy, the Office of Child Support Enforcement, embarked on a national propaganda campaign. By the time the Child Support Enforcement Amendments were proposed in 1984, which began a dramatic expansion in the office’s size, budget, and powers, most politicians were talking as if “deadbeat dads” were the nation’s most serious problem(21).” [1] .
“. . . The mathematical formulae that assists in child support decisions has gone on for decades. There are major flaws in current formulae and their use are apparent.
Child support guidelines in use in the U.S. are based primarily on the opinions and assumptions made by two people, Robert Williams and Irwin Garfinkel.Approximately two-thirds of all states use the Income Shares approach that has been questioned continuously since the publication of Robert Williams’ report in 1987[2]”
The History of Robert Williams
“Robert Williams’ involvement in child support issues coincides with the formation of his company, Policy Studies Inc. in 1984. We find no record of his involvement in family questions, no history of academic achievement in the field or even evidence that he’s qualified to deal with complicated policy / design issues. He came from nowhere in the mid-1980s as the Office of Child Support Enforcement’s choice to provide technical assistance to the states in developing child support guidelines and was able to provide nothing except extreme policy views. Without having any legal authority, or a logical or scientific basis for his recommendations, he has to a very great extent dictated child support policy in all states ever since. Most disturbing of all is that his business operations include a collection company that takes a percentage of the amount of child support paid. Mr. Williams therefore has a direct financial interest in increasing award amounts.” [ ibid…2]
Robert Williams Bogus Studies
“. . . According to the Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984, Robert
Williams technical report7 was supposed to “provide technical assistance to the states” in developing their child support guidelines. It was not under that legislation, and still is not today, an acceptable role for the federal government to decide each state’s policy for making a child support award. Yet, each of us who have carefully studied Robert Williams’ report recognizes that something is amiss. Robert Williams’ recommendations are not based on the established state laws of the time. His methods are not flexible enough to adapt to policy choices states are entitled to make. Underlying his technical recommendations are Robert Williams’ policy choices. (Something he admitted in a deposition in a federal case.) And those choices are not clearly specified so as to facilitate open discussion and debate.
- Lazear, Edward P. and Robert T. Michael, Allocation of Income Within the Household, University of ChicagoPress, 1988
The explicit argument given in favor of Williams’ model rests on rather crude statistical methods which Robert Williams typically refers to as “economic studies”. There is no appropriate economic data at the heart of these “studies”. The data that Williams, Betson, and a few others have related to their “studies” is so off target that there is very little reason to refer to their studies as being “statistical”.
The data used in these “estimates” is the national data on family expenditure that comes from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Nearly all of the data is on what families spend as opposed to what is spent on individual family members. In other words, it does not provide a statistical view of what is spent on children and adults in households but what is spent in total on different items of expenditure. One can get a
reasonable view of what households spend on housing and transportation for example. But no amount of witchcraft can transform that cost into how much is attributable to children, or differences due to cost of living variation amongst states.
The data used has very little effect on the numbers produced in the so-called “economic studies”. The numbers are primarily the result of the arbitrary choices the modelers make in selecting an estimating method. The modelers choose the portion of family income “distributed” to adults and to children. That information does not exist in national data on family spending and there is no way to divine it from that source. Here is what two competent researchers said about such “studies”.
. . . the presumption that underlies the focus of much of the empirical research and policy debate on income distribution [within households] seems born of ignorance and is supported by neither theory nor fact(7) . . .”
- Lazear, Edward P. and Robert T. Michael, Allocation of Income Within the Household, University of ChicagoPress, 1988
The explicit argument given in favor of Williams’ model rests on rather crude statistical methods which Robert Williams typically refers to as “economic studies”. There is no appropriate economic data at the heart of these “studies”. The data that Williams, Betson, and a few others have related to their “studies” is so off target that there is very little reason to refer to their studies as being “statistical”.
The data used in these “estimates” is the national data on family expenditure that comes from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Nearly all of the data is on what
families spend as opposed to what is spent on individual family members. In other words, it does not provide a statistical view of what is spent on children and adults in households but what is spent in total on different items of expenditure. One can get a reasonable view of what households spend on housing and transportation for example. But no amount of witchcraft can transform that cost into how much is attributable to children, or differences due to cost of living variation amongst states.
The data used has very little effect on the numbers produced in the so-called “economic studies”. The numbers are primarily the result of the arbitrary choices the modelers make in selecting an estimating method. The modelers choose the portion of family income “distributed” to adults and to children. That information does not exist in national data on family spending and there is no way to divine it from that source. Here is what two competent researchers said about such “studies”.
. . . the presumption that underlies the focus of much of the empirical research and policy debate on income distribution [within households] seems born of ignorance and is supported by neither theory nor fact.(7) . . .”
- Lazear, Edward P. and Robert T. Michael, Allocation of Income Within the Household, University of Chicago Press, 1988
Mr. Williams used a Consumer Expenditure Survey to base an irrational monthly child support payment, while his company reaped the rewards for collecting these payments from Fathers. Mr. Williams purposely made sure that these payments are irrationally high, not for the sake of the child, but for the sake of the profits for his own company. This entire Child Support Law was formulated by someone with absolutely no
experience and without any benefit to the child and who is opposed to Fathers seeing their own children.
Fathers are put at risk for becoming criminals. This child support process leads to Fathers receiving warrants for their arrest. This process gives Fathers criminal records which in turn will knock them out of the job market. This will make it impossible for them to continue child support, which will lead to more jail time. This violates Fathers life and liberty.
Mothers as well as Fathers should share the financial responsibility of the care of a child. This current system is unconstitutional, discriminatory and unfair for the Father to assume the entire financial obligation to a child. Compared to Fathers, Mothers have over 90% more birth control options than Fathers. Men have two options, one is condoms, and the other is vasectomy. 99.9% of men only have condoms as their birth control methods. Mothers again have an innumerable amount of birth control methods as compared to Fathers. Since Mothers have more options then men, they should share half of the financial responsibility to care for a child. Women are equal to men; at least that’s what the law says. Equality should be used in Child Support. Women have advanced on the economic and career ladder and continue to do so. An article published in the “October 16, 2007 edition of RedEye states: “Many women in Chicago earn more than men—and that can make dating extremely difficult”. The article goes on to state that “. . . when women make more money than their dates—which is happening among twentysomethings in several cities including Chicago, New York, Minneapolis and Boston, according to an analysis of 2005 Census data by Queens College Sociology Professor Andrew Beveridge.”
For additional information on women’s escalating salaries see:
“[Sources: Queens College Analysis of 2005 Census; 2006 Census; Bureau of Labor Statistics; Federal Reserve; Prince and Associates, A Market Research firm focuses on private wealth]”
Women in some cases have more job opportunities than males. Now with the current lock and load system for Fathers, women have even greater job opportunities than males. So I ask, why are men put in the position of being the one with the greatest financial responsibility?
Following is a detailed account of what some Fathers have to endure. A mother without the consent or advice of a Father seeks welfare. Welfare allows the mother to stay on for years and since the laws have changed, a mother can only receive welfare for 60 months, which equals to five years. The Mother MUST sign a paper giving the state the right to pursue child support in order to receive assistance. Once the five years are over, then the state seeks all the money the mother has received from the Father and labels this as back child support. Then they automatically send out warrant for the arrest of the Father for back child support.
This is for the years of assistance that the mother sought out and got. This child support process leaves a father vulnerable to a criminal record. With unemployment at an all time high this process makes it impossible for the Father to catch up, so to speak. That calculates to child support payments automatically set at $20,000 to $36,000.00 for a father, when it begins. In addition to that, some men who have been incarcerated, once released are hit with back child support payments, leading to warrants
and additional felonies, through no fault of their own. Not only that, in order for a Father to see his own child, he has to get a lawyer and petition the court for visitation. The current process of calculating child support takes the Father and Mothers income, even though they do not live together and are not married to figure out the payment the Father MUST make. Even though the LAW stipulates that husband and wives assume each others debt, not non-married couples. Why are two people/parents who don’t live together and only share a child together incomes figured together and then the Father is hit with the bill?
A domestic relationship does not belong in the hand of the government. The article below gives a 2007 breakdown on the costs to raise a child to adulthood. Mind you this figure is higher than in 1987 when Robert Williams based his analysis for the amount of child support. This is based on the lifetime support of a child. If you will notice, the less money you make, the less money is needed for the care of a child.
“My mother used to say if anyone in her generation had stopped to ask how much it cost to raise a child before they had them, none of the people in my generation would have been born. And that was 40 years ago.
But today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the cost of kids is far higher:
Families who make: Will spend:
More than $74,900 $289,380
$44,500 to $74,900 $197,700
Less than $44,500 $143,790
Where does all that money go? According to Bankrate.com, the breakdown at the middle-tier level looks something like this:
- Groceries — $1525 year
• Clothing — $606 year
• Bigger home — $2900 year
• Bigger car — $1250 year
• Health care — $300 year
• Education — $600 year
• Child care — $4300 year (through age 11)
• Recreation — $300 year
• Additional insurance — $300 year
• Gift giving — $330 year
• Miscellaneous — $330 year
Please also see link below. http://secondwivescafe.com/articles/supportreform.shtml
The above expenditures for raising a child should be split between both parents. Therefore, groceries, clothing, health care, education, child care, recreation should be split between two parents. A bigger home and car should not be included within caring for a child. Miscellaneous and gift giving is up to the individual parents.
Groceries = 764.00 per parent
Education = 303.00 per parent
Health care = 150.00 per parent
* Additional insurance and Health care should be included as one.
Child care = 2150.00 per parent (only to age 11)
Total per child, per parent = $3,367.00 per parent, per year. After age 11, child care support drops by $2150.
A bigger home and a bigger car is a necessity a parent would have made without a child. As children grow, they don’t need bigger cars. They grow from a car seat to sitting in the seat of a car. Children don’t outgrow cars or houses. With a $500 to $800 child support payment, the payment that the father makes exceeds what is needed to take care of a child financially for a year by
thousands. Let’s not forget the problem of obesity we have with children. Instead of being active, they are too reliant on the handheld games. With obesity now an issues with children because they have premature diabetes and a host of other problems leading to ill health, one should consider the excess in raising a child.
“. . .Estimated Child-Rearing Expenditures
Estimates of 1996 family expenditures on the younger child in husband-wife households with two children for the overall United States are shown in table 1. Expenses on children vary considerably by household income level. Depending on the age of the child, the annual expenses range from $5,670 to $6,740 for families in the lowest income group (1996 before-tax income less than $34,700), from $7,860 to $8,960 for families in the middle-income group (1996 before-tax income between $34,700 and $58,300), and from $11,680 to $12,930 for families in the highest income group (1996 before-tax income more than $58,300).[3] On average, households in the lowest income group spend 28 percent of their before-tax income per year on a child, those in the middle-income group, 18 percent, and those in the highest income group, 14 percent.
“. . .The Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984 were primarily aimed to improve the collection of child support. These amendments required States to (1) use automatic wage withholding to collect overdue child support, (2) use expedited legal processes to establish and enforce support orders, (3) collect overdue support by intercepting State income tax refunds, and (4) initiate a process for imposing liens against real and personal property for nonpayment of child support. The amendments also required States to set
numeric child support guidelines and to make these guidelines available to officials in charge of setting the level of child support. The amendments, however, did not require that these guidelines be binding.
Following below is The Chatman Bill that I would like to propose as legislation for child support.
First every child gets $250.00 per month from EACH parent. This will accumulate to $500.00 a month for the child. Five hundred dollars a month for a child is more than sufficient for all the child’s needs for a month, including child care. At the discretion of the parent, they can add additional money to the child’s fund, however the payments should be $250.00 per month, per child and each child has separate accounts.
Special needs for the child will be split between both parents outside of the allocated $250 per month, as they arise.
This money is put into a bank account, where withdrawals can be made to address the needs of the child. This bank account is privy to both parents that each can use to address the needs of the child. However, one parent cannot use the monies put in by the other parent, without the written consent of the other parent.
This will accumulate to over $5,000.00 a year which is more than a sufficient amount of money to take care of all children from 0-18 on a day-by-day basis. Money not used in the account is saved over to the next month and can be put in an interest bearing account or invested. In doing this, the child has a saving accumulation which can be given to the child once they reach emancipation or used for the child’s college fund. This too
will bring accountability for what both parents spend on the child.
This method has two advantages. First, it will save the states over 4 billion dollars in much needed revenue and second, it will build the banking industry and perhaps lead to more jobs. This plan would put billions of dollars into the banking industry, leading to more jobs and showing children how to save. The money can even bear interest.
Elimination of back child support. From the time a mother asks for support, and the father is notified. That is the time child support begins. It will no longer be retroactive from the time the child was born. Fathers will be eliminated from being penalized for monies that a mother sought after and received from any other source. A parent is not liable for the other parent’s accumulation of debts.
In life, the mothers who receive child support oftimes have other men in their lives contributing to their household as well as the father of their children. However, the father is still the head of his other household and his other household is responsible for his child support payments because as a double standard, the Father and his significant other’s income is figured into the child support payments. The entire dynamics of the family suffers financially. This system is ruining families by putting heavier financial burdens on families. The father’s only responsibility is to that of the child, not the mother.
Elimination of garnishment of Fathers Check. A money into time alternative. If the father loses his job or becomes disabled, child support payments will be allowed to stop. The father has two years catch up on payments into the child’s account. The father’s checks are no longer garnished, nor
will warrants be issued for a Fathers’ arrest. The responsibility of support is given back to the parents and billions of dollars can now be saved by the States. During the time a father is unemployed, he has a money into time alternative. Time spent with his child in lieu of child support payments is enacted for two years. When a father cannot pay child support from a job loss or disability, then they have to make up this in time spent with the child. Each parent must pay for their own method of child care or they can agree to split child care. When the father has the child, he has to pay for child care. When the mother has the child, she has to pay for child care. Each parent can only use their 250.00 per month from the child’s account and not the other’s parents monies put in.
The States can save over 24 billion dollars because of these biased Child Support Laws. Currently the biased child support laws are swelling the prison system up to one that is already overcrowded; money for added personnel will be reduced. Not to mention the psychological scarring that is caused to Fathers being thrown in jail and possibly being sexually-assaulted for lack of payment to their own children.
Mothers are making their own choices. With the tables that follow, you will see a direct correlation with the increase in unwed mothers and child care payments. We are creating deadbeat moms, who have replaced jobs and welfare with child support. There also seems to be a correlation with unwed moms and child support. The studies suggest that more women are choosing not to marry because they don’t want to go into risky marriages. However, the figures for unwed mothers have gone up over 50% since the child support laws. Mothers have benefited greatly from these higher child support payments and as a result are choosing not to marry. And as with the former Welfare
system, the more children you have, the more money you get. It is the same with child care. If the minimum child support payment for one child is 750.00 and a mother has two children that is 1500.00 per month. One must wonder about the correlation between Mr. Williams’s child support and the rise in unwed mother births during this period and following his child support laws. Child support cannot improve the economic well being of the mother. That should be the mother’s responsibility. This system has created women who don’t work and are dependent upon a child care payment. This is what I term switched dependency perpetuated by child support laws; with women choosing to have children out of wedlock. For Black women, childbearing before marriage doubled and for white women, childbearing before marriage tripled from 1990 to 1994.
“ABSTRACT”
Premarital childbearing is on the rise not only among teenage women but also among older women. Data from June 1980 and 1995 Current Population Surveys were used to examine the trend in marital status of women at first birth. These trends in premarital childbearing were examined by age, race and Hispanic origin. About 53 percent of first births which occurred between 1990 and 1994 to women 15 to 29 years old were either born out-of-wedlock or conceived before the women’s first marriage. About 60 years ago, only one of 6 births was born or conceived before marriage.”
“RESULTS”
Decline in the Propensity to Marry before the First Birth.
The statistic in the last column of Table 1 shows the propensity to marry before the birth of a premaritally conceived child. Increases in the proportion of premarital births may result not only from increases in the rate of premarital childbearing but also from declines in the propensity of couples to marry before the birth of a premaritally conceived child in order to avert an out-of-wedlock birth. It is observed that there has been a decline in the propensity of women with a premaritally conceived birth to marry since the 1930s, although there seems to be a halt in this decline during the 1990s (Figure 2). The major decline in this statistic occurred between the 1960s and 1980s during a time of great social changes among young persons in the U.S. Nowadays, both the parents of unmarried teenage mothers and the unmarried mothers themselves may question the gains of a forced marriage, especially if the father of the child may not be able to maintain the family or may divorce soon after the marriage.
Estimates prepared by Alan Guttmacher Institute indicate that about one-half of the abortions performed to women 15 to 44 years old in 1994-95 were to unmarried women4. It is not known, however, what proportion of those unmarried women having an abortion would have married before the birth, in the absence of legal provisions for an abortion.
The declines in the proportion of women marrying before the birth of their premaritally conceived child may reflect the opinion of some women that they may be better off in the long run by relying more on the support of their parents and relatives for financial and emotional assistance than by entering a potentially unstable marriage undertaken solely to prevent an out-of-wedlock birth.
In general, the propensity to marry before the first birth is significantly less now than in the 1930s, regardless of age (Figure 3). Although a decline in this rate was noted among teenagers between 1985-89 and 1990-94, no such decline was noted for women 20 years old and over in this same period. It is possible that there may be changes in the attitudes of some older women who may be living with their partner and had planned to marry anyway, not just because the woman became pregnant.
Trends in Premarital Childbearing by Race and Hispanic Origin
For Black women under age 30, the percentage of first births either born or conceived before first marriage doubled from 43 percent during the 1930-34 period to 86 percent during 1990-94 (Table 2). In both periods, the majority of premaritally conceived first births to Black women were born out of wedlock. Only one in 10 Black women who had a premaritally conceived birth in 1990-94 was married by the time of the child’s birth compared to one-quarter of these births in the 1930s (Figure 4).
The proportion of white women under age 30 who had either premarital or premaritally conceived first births tripled from a total of 15 percent in 1930-34 to 46 percent in 1990-94 (Table 2). This change was primarily the result of an increase in the premarital birth component of this statistic from six to 33 percent while the premaritally conceived birth component only increased from nine to 13 percent. A similar declining trend in the propensity to marry before the birth of a premaritally conceived child is noted among white women: about 61 percent married before the child’s birth in the 1930s compared to 29 percent in the period 1990-94. The proportion of Black women marrying before the first birth was consistently less than that of their White
counterparts for the entire 1930-34 to 1990-94 period (Figure 4).
The percent of first births either premaritally born or conceived by Hispanic women also increased from 30 percent in 1965-69 to 55 percent in 1990-94 (Table 2). In both periods, the majority of premaritally conceived births to Hispanics were born before the mother’s first marriage. Twenty-eight percent of Hispanic women who had premaritally conceived first births in 1990-94 married before their child was born, a rate which was not statistically different from the proportion observed for non-Hispanic women (figure 5).
One in Two First Births in 1990-94 was Conceived before First Marriage. Table 1 and Figure 1, show that 53 percent of first births between 1990 and 1994 to women 15 to 29 years old were either born out-of-wedlock (40 percent) or conceived before the woman’s first marriage (13 percent). About 60 years ago, only one out six births (18 percent) was born or conceived before marriage.
In 1990-94, significant differences in the proportion of births either premaritally born or conceived are noted between White women (46 percent) and Black women (86 percent) (Table 2). Hispanic3 women had an intermediate proportion of first births premaritally either born or conceived (55 percent).
About 89 percent of first births between 1990 and 1994 and teenagers were either born (75 percent) or conceived (14 percent) before the women’s first marriage compared to 52 percent for women 20 to 24 years old, and 19 percent for women 25 to 29 years old (Table 3).
“Table 1. Estimated annual expenditures(*) on a child by husband-wife families, overall United States, 1996
Age of
child Total Housing Food Transportation
Before-tax income: Less than $34,700 (Average=$21,600)
0-2 $5,670 $2,160 $810 $720
3-5 5,780 2,140 900 700
6-8 5,900 2,060 1,160 810
9-11 5,940 1,860 1,380 880
12-14 6,740 2,080 1,450 1,000
15-17 6,650 1,680 1,570 1,340
Total $110,040 $35,940 $21,810 $16,350
Before-tax income: $34,700 to $58,300 (Average=$46,100)
0-2 $7,860 $2,930 $960 $1,080
3-5 8,060 2,900 1,110 1,050
6-8 8,130 2,830 1,420 1.170
9-11 8,100 2,630 1,670 1,240
12-14 8,830 2,840 1,680 1,350
15-17 8,960 2,440 1,870 1,710
Total $149,820 $49,710 $26,130 $22,800
Before-tax income: More than $58,300 (Average=$87,300)
0-2 $11,680 $4,650 $1,280 $1,510
3-5 11,910 4,620 1,450 1,480
6-8 11,870 4,550 1,740 1,600
9-11 11,790 4,350 2,030 1,670
12-14 12,620 4,570 2,130 1,780
15-17 12,930 4,160 2,240 2,160
Total $218,400 $80,700 $32,610 $30,600
Child
Health care and
Clothing care education Miscellaneous([dagger])
Before-tax income: $34,700 to $58,300 (Average=$21,600)
0-2 $370 $390 $660 $560
3-5 360 370 740 570
6-8 400 420 440 610
9-11 450 460 270 640
12-14 750 470 190 800
15-17 670 500 310 580
Total $9,000 $7,830 $7,830 $11,280
Before-tax income: $34,700 to $58,300 (Average=$46,100)
0-2 $440 $510 $1,080 $860
3-5 430 490 1,200 880
6-8 470 560 770 910
9-11 520 600 500 940
12-14 880 610 370 1,100
15-17 780 640 630 890
Total $10,560 $10,230 $13,650 $16,740
Before-tax income: More than $58,300 (Average=$87,300)
0-2 $580 $580 $1,630 $1,450
3-5 560 560 1,780 1,460
6-8 620 640 1,220 1,500
9-11 670 690 850 1,530
12-14 1,110 690 650 1,690
15-17 1,010 730 1,150 1,480
Total $13,650 $11,670 $21,840 $27,330”
“.The current child support formulae overshoot child support and actually includes alimony whether married or not. In every instance of child support, there are mitigating factors that should be considered.
The best vision is that of allowing consideration of a wider range of mitigating factors in determining ability to pay. Doing so would provide one part of the fine-tuning needed to meet the federal requirement for a “just and appropriate award in each case”.
“. .. Frank’s model is more advanced than Williams’ in dealing with shared parenting and visitation. Franks presented a method known as “cross crediting”. There has since been discussion on whether the cross crediting formula should be applied strictly according to the amount of time children spend in each household when one or both parents’ income is low. This question is resolvable and the cross crediting concept provides a very solid theoretical basis for dealing with the sharing of direct expenditures by parents.
Williams’ simply filters out all credits for visitation and shared parenting arrangements, and assume zero time-share. The tenacity with which he has fought to eliminate visitation credits is one of the reasons that he, rather than just his work, has often been characterized as extremely biased against non-custodial parents. Even when state representatives and state courts protest, opting for at least some token reduction in support as visitation credit, Mr. Williams has fought to minimize it. With the elimination of proper visitation credits, the income of many non-custodial parents can be reduced beyond the point where they are able to afford normal visitation. The objective evidence is telling us that much of the reason for lack of regular visitation is because the non-custodial parent cannot afford to support the children during visitation. This problem increases dramatically without proper credit for visitation in the formulation of child support awards.
Under the present child support award system, those who can still afford visitation are usually not convinced that they should be forced to pay many expenses twice; once directly during visits and again in the form of a child support payment calculated as if the children never visit. After the
introduction of Williams’ recommendations no state is cross-crediting. . .”
This Child Support Model only breaks the family further apart. If fathers were permitted to spend time and see their children in lieu of child support especially if they are unable to pay the full amount, this benefits the child and makes a more balance child, since studies have shown that children from one parent houses are more than likely to get into more trouble. Wayward behavior can be discouraged and abandoned with the time spent from both parents, especially when it puts a financial burden on the father to pay the gross of Child Support.
“One of the problems with Percent-of Income, Income Shares, and early Cost Sharing Models is their simple use of income for assigning, or dividing the support obligation into a proportionate share for each parent. None of these approaches addresses the parents’ ability to pay support for their child or children or the consequences to the children or either parent when meeting the obligation of support.”
However, the male has more financial obligations, for the simple fact he is a male. The male oftimes is paying in two households causing financial hardships, whereas when the women gets married, the man still has to pay child support even though she is married, with additional income. On the other hand, when the man gets married his income is spread between his married family and child support. And the additional income from his wife is also figured into his child support payments. Financially fathers are being overburdened.
Both parents have a shared responsibility to a child that should include time, as well as money. In order to keep chaos and financial hardship from further wreaking havoc on the
family and criminalizing the father. Fathers should not have warrants put out for their arrest for non payment of funds to their own child. This should be eliminated. The Father and Mothers income should not be figured in income averaging together in order to decide what the father will pay. 99.9% of the time these fathers and mothers are not married, have never been married and have never shared an income or household. Many times fathers did not even know moms were pregnant, because society promotes sex without marriage. Many times fathers have expressed to the mom that they didn’t want to have children.
I am mom and I am speaking out against this because it is wrong. If whites did not speak out against the British, then they would still be British today and speaking a British-English dialect. They expressed their anguish through the Declaration of Independence. If Martin Luther King did not speak out, then Blacks would still be sitting on the back of the bus.
As Americans, we don’t understand why our lawmakers are so comfortable and content with locking American Citizens up at the drop of a hat, and in record numbers, but at the same time allowing those with criminal records and illegal migration into the country in record numbers and make no laws to stop it.?
“CONCLUSION”
What should be regarded as the greatest mistake in the reform movement, as well as the greatest embarrassment to the United States is that the domestic political discussion has consisted almost exclusively of propaganda demonizing non-custodial parents. In the background, the American public has been aware of “The New World Order” in relation to the fall of the Soviet
Union, and generally understand that new global trade agreements have been and are being forged. But not a hint of information has been fed to the general public on integration of or “cooperation” in an array of social programs or the impact of global integration on our domestic judicial system. Had the government made a greater effort at full disclosure, the American public would surely have responded with pressure to adapt newly proposed systems to Constitutional requirements.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported that an error of forty cents was made in withholding one man’s final child support payments. The man believed he was finished with the child support enforcement agency and went on with his life. He wasn’t told that he owed back support until one day he was informed that he faced contempt of court charges that could result in a 180 day jail sentence. By that time the agency said he owed $173.53 including interest and fees.(34)
The problems of the new system go well beyond inappropriate child support awards. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that in the process “designed to snag deadbeat dads and force them to pay up on their child support”, one county had assigned paternity incorrectly to hundreds of men by default.(35) The bureaucratic idea of “due process” is that if the proper paperwork isn’t submitted on time, the individual citizen they deem responsible for it faces the consequences. Those consequences included trouble with relationships and marriages and assignment of a child support obligation. The agency then refused to correct the problem and it has been necessary for innocent victims to go through the process of battling the bureaucracy in court
It is time to talk about Americanizing our new child support decision system. Several states are actually using the Soviet Communist system promoted by Irwin Garfinkel, while all other states have been pushed in that direction by promotion of Williams’ odd variation of the Income Shares model. Beyond the formulae for calculation of child support awards, there is the array of unrelated punishments such as the loss of drivers and professional licenses and the return of the United States to the ante-bellum standards of involuntary servitude and debtors prisons that had not been abandoned in the Soviet Union.
The fact is that the bureaucratic “efficiency” promoted by international integration isn’t compatible with fundamental rights in the United States. “Efficiency” in this sense has nothing to do with doing the job correctly. It has had to do with a broadside attack on a large group of citizens, an over-controlling government, a federal government becoming too involved in the daily lives of individuals, and spending more money doing it. In the broad view, Americans who have become familiar with the system look at the billions of additional dollars spent on a system that provides no net benefit, a federally developed $3 billion dollar computer tracking system that doesn’t improve payments but causes harm to innocent people, and they cannot equate the reforms with efficiency.
In 1995, the cost of operating the child support enforcement program was nearly 3 times the amount paid in reimbursement of welfare benefits.(36) The promotion of reform presented to the American people consisted of telling them that poverty in the US was largely the fault of “deadbeat dads” who had successfully transferred financial responsibility for their children to the American taxpayer. The expensive new
child support enforcement system was called an “investment” aimed at forcing these fathers to live up to their responsibilities to the relief of the American taxpayer. Instead, it’s added around $3 billion each year to their burden. The failure of the program to produce promised results was so predictable that one congressman said; “We’re going to reform welfare in order to save money. As far as I can tell, it’s going to be very expensive.”
The most efficient thing to do is to eliminate the new system and focus on doing what’s right the first time around. What this requires is exactly what Americans have always understood. Basic rights, including strong respect for due process of law, careful scrutiny to see that people are not treated unjustly, enforcing the necessary discipline against waste and error. The basic rules which most Americans believe to be fundamental to our Constitutional system should even protect groups of citizens who happen to find themselves at the cross-roads of bureaucratic interests against the ill feelings and biases created by intense propaganda campaigns.
The approach proposed in the sections above (based on Legal Construction) was taken in the Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology (PICSLT) starting in 1989. A great deal was learned about tuning child support formulae to the American system. Generally, child support committee members have seen the application of mathematics to the child support question as something magical and transforming, as though once a report is produced alleging statistical support for one view, there is no longer any need for traditional legal processes.
But there most certainly is a need. The only way to properly apply mathematical
decision models within the context of Constitutional justice is to fully disclose the nature of the mathematics, the underlying reasoning, and the assumptions in such a way as to make their review practical in comparison with the circumstances of each case. The only acceptable way to reduce the number of deviations from guideline amounts is to continue to improve the decision models so that they do a better job. In addition, making it easier to identify situations in which deviations are appropriate and developing simple ways to calculate deviations would improve the overall efficiency of the process.
As it turns out, developing a model within the discipline the United States Constitution provides an excellent body of theory useful to other countries in the world. Whereas other countries have developed models specifically fitting their economic / political structure and tuned to their current set of welfare state benefits, the Constitution simply tells us that we are required to “do the right thing” in each case. We are therefore under pressure to dig deeply into the question to determine what the right thing is in the greatest possible array of circumstances. This means developing the most general and complete theory.
In recent study within PICSLT, it has been found that models fitting a wide range of political / economic systems can be explained by the theory developed within the project. Beginning with the most complete model, we simply eliminate variables that do not apply in more controlled economies, and account for any array of welfare state benefits by methods which are already an integral part of the theory. This confirms the view given in the previous paragraph.
The scientific approach to developing child support science and technology should be
understood as a parallel to the established judicial process, what we call “due process”. Mathematical models are a precise, formal way of expressing concepts and relationships. “Precise” is not synonymous with “just” or “appropriate”. To produce valid results (“just and appropriate” in the words of the Family Support Act) successful testing is required. In order to test, some set of independent criteria for deciding what “just and appropriate” is must be developed (i.e. a child support policy to which a presumptively correct “guideline” must conform).
It was disconcerting to see how quickly very simple child support formulae were accepted in the states. Even more so because their simplicity was given as one of their major selling points. Federal law (and the Constitution) require a just and appropriate award in each and every case. The goal is to construct guidelines that are sufficient to produce just and appropriate awards in every circumstance to which they are applied. It is required that judges can identify inappropriate and unjust results and that attorneys and parents can argue for deviation when a formula fails.
No one should underestimate the task of adapting properly to the new requirements. The initial thrust, following OCSE / Williams recommendations for development of guidelines was a false start. In order to do the job properly, and in the quickest and most efficient manner, it will be necessary for legislatures and the courts to give the highest priority to the basic requirements of the Family Support Act (“just and appropriate award in each case”) and the highest respect for Constitutional rights.”
Footnote references for text in original blog of Child Support .
http://adrr.com/law1/csp11.htm
- Section 467(b) of the Social Security Act as specified in the Family Support Act of 1988.
- Title IV, Part D of the Social Security Act
18. Solomon, Carmen D., 1989, The Child Support Enforcement Program: Policy and Practice, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, December 8, 1989, 1-3.
19. Solomon, p 12.
20. Malone, Margaret, The Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984, Congressional Research Service, Report No. 84-796 EPW, Washington, 1984, p 1-2.
21. During 1992 presidential debates, president George Bush said that he thought maybe the “deadbeat dad thing” was the problem Americans were most concerned about. To that, candidate Bill Clinton made the famous remark, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Politicians can apparently have short memories. President Bill Clinton continued to rely heavily on “deadbeat dad thing” through his 1996 re-election campaign. “ - Milton man says debt had grown to $173.53 by the time he learned of it, Kathleen Ostrander, Special to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 10, 1998
- LOS ANGELES, April 12 (UPI)
- 1996 “Green Book
Sidebar: Go to the Youtube video and search for and watch the video entitled “Child Support Was Not Created to Help Children”
IT REALLY IS TIME FOR A CHANGE, NOT JUST POLITICAL MANTRAS
There is a striking disparity between criminalizing American Fathers, and allowing illegal immigrant children, whose fathers will never pay child support, never be jailed, or never have any property removal waged against them, nor will the fathers of DACA children. The so called uproar and outrage of the Democrat party, the same party that imposed an unconstitutional law on Americans Fathers, that destroyed their family unit, is now stomping ground for illegal children to enter into the United States, with no child support on the agenda and no jail time for their fathers.
WHAT DOES THE CONSTITUTION SAY ABOUT ALL OF THIS?
The constitution has been violated with the deadbeat dads propaganda laws, by the lawmakers who we esteem the highest honor onto to uphold the laws. However, these ELECTED political and biased laws they institute show slanted and erroneous policies that have destroyed the family. These laws have also destroyed the potential and future wage earnings of the dads.
28 U.S. Code § 2007 – Imprisonment for debt | US Law | LII / Legal …
A person shall not be imprisoned for debt on a writ of execution or other process issued from a court of the United States in any State wherein imprisonment for debt has been abolished.
Join BEWARE
Join Black Educated Women Against Racism Everywhere (BEWARE)™, LLC as we embark on abolishing from state to state the imprisonment of dads and/or moms, and the seizing of their personal properties, as well as the taking of their drivers license. Their credit reports are seized, and their credit scores are compromised. They are put in arrears with penalties, and interest. This is some bullshit. The government got around this unconstitutional agenda by going through third parties. Theses government officials make it impossible for fathers to receive back taxes. These unconstitutional barbaric laws have stripped men of everything. These over the top child support payments have burdened fathers, leaving them emotionally and economically crippled, by consenting women. What’s more women who received assistance from the state are required to turn over their child support payments to the state. If men don’t have monies for child support they should receive credit for spending time with their children in lieu of monetary contributions. We want to bring the father back to their children. STOP THE VICIOUS CRIMINALIZATION OF DADS AROUND THE COUNTRY, AND CLEAR THEIR RECORDS OF CRIMINAL CHARGES, AND IRS PROBLEMS FOR CHILD SUPPORT. There is more fraud with women claiming non-fathers of their children, not to mention the women that entrap men without their knowledge or consent into having children. Many women have lied about birth control to these men. In the Black community, the children need their fathers, who suffer drastically from high unemployment.
That being said, and
Please sign the petition to appeal the current Child Support laws that turns dad into criminals, and separates children from their fathers, and these are American citizens!
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