Complaint Review: TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL CHILD SUPPORT

The Law Perverted!   Child Support and Politicians alike have taken the position of Marxist Principal in the Freeworld by dominating and exploiting the working class. Made to perform more labor than is necessary. Alienation-denotes the estrangement of people from their humanity. Child Support has nothing to do with justice, it is a panoply of plundered pops, and overwhelmingly now more than ever, Child Support is a regime whereby a father is forced to finance the filching of his own children. What is most striking is that this witch hunt of zealots has come entirely from government officials. No public outcry ever preceded these measures. The public never demanded that the government take action, nor has any public discussion of this alleged problem ever been held in the national or local media.

Needless to say the voices of pursued parents are seldom heard amid the chorus of condemnation. The bipartisan certainty of their guilt is sufficient to set aside their right to trial and declare them public enemies by general acclaim. Yet there is reason to believe that this problem is an optical illusion and that what is being portrayed as irresponsible fathers is in reality a massive abuse of government power. In recent years, a few cracks have appeared in the monolith. William Comanor writes that child-support obligations the only form of obligation or debt that most of the debtors have done nothing to incur- are now treated far more harshly than any other form of debt.  Attorney Ron Henry characterizes the system as an obvious sham a disaster, and the most onerous form of debt collection practiced in the United States.  The overwhelming majority of so-called deadbeat dads are judicially created, says another attorney. Why all this talk about so-called deadbeat dads? Because there is a lot of money to be made through that myth.

When one begins to research the objective data and the research of independent scholars, it turns out that the problem is mostly the creation of government officials. In fact the myth of deadbeat dad has already been discredited conclusively by Sanford Braver and other scholars. We have already seen that few married or not married fathers seldom voluntarily abandon their children. Beyond this Braver has also shown that little scientific basis exists for claims that large numbers of fathers are not paying child support. Braver found that government claims of nonpayment were derived not from any compiled database or hard figures but entirely from surveys of mothers, and these alone, in setting enforcement policy against fathers, and no effort is made to balance them with surveys of non-custodial parents. Yet Braver found that fathers overwhelmingly do pay court-ordered child support when they are employed, often at enormous personal sacrifice.

STATE REVENUE VIA CHILD SUPPORT

A look at government machinery reveals that it was created not in response to claims of widespread nonpayment but before them, and that it was less a response to deadbeat dads than a mechanism to create them. Like new divorce laws (and shortly after their enactment), the child-support regulations and criminal enforcement machinery were created while few were paying attention.

Under pressure from bar associations and feminist groups, President Gerald Ford signed legislation creating the Office of Child Support Enforcement in 1975, warning at the time that it constituted unwarranted federal intrusion into families and the role of states. Contrary to professions of concern for the children, the principal purpose was never to provide for abandoned or impoverished children but to recoup welfare costs for the government. In fact, no study has ever been undertaken by the Department of Health and Human Services, Congress, or any branch of government to explain the reason for the agencys existence.

Almost immediately the program began to expand exponentially, increasing tenfold from 1978 to 1998. The massive growth of law-enforcement machinery and reach was federally driven. In 1984, the Child Support Enforcement amendment to the Social Security Act required states to adopt child support guidelines. The legislation was promoted by the OCSE itself and by private collection companiesagain less to help children than to save the government money under the theory that it would help get single-mother families off of welfare by making fathers pay more.  Because most unpaid child support is due to unemployment, and because most non-custodial parents of AFDC [welfare] children do not earn enough to pay as much child support as their children are already receiving in AFDC benefits, according to researchers Irwin Garfinkel and Sara McLanahan, higher child-support guidelines could not help these children.

Then, with no explanation or justification (or constitutional authority), guidelines and criminal enforcement machinery conceived and created to address the minority of children in poverty were extended, under pressure from OCSE and other interests, to all child-support orders, even the majority not receiving welfare, by the Family Support Act of 1988. This vastly enlarged the program and transformed a welfare provision into an entitlement. Today welfare cases, consisting mostly of unmarried parents account for only 17 percent of all child-support cases, and the proportion is shrinking. The remaining 83 percent of non-welfare cases consist largely of previously married fathers who are usually divorced involuntarily and who generally can be counted on to pay.  With wage withholding, the number of dollars passing through the government collection system exploded, mostly from non-welfare cases for which the system was never designed, which currently accounts for 92 percent of the money collected.

The 1988 law also made the guidelines presumptive and, for all practical purposes, compulsory. By one estimate the new guidelines more than doubled the size of awards. Yet that point was already known among policy makers and scholars that, with the exception of the relatively small number of poor and unemployed fathers, no serious problem on nonpayment existed. Not only was Braver presenting the results of his research, but a federal pilot study commissioned four years earlier by OCSE itself was published with similar findings. Originally the full-scale government-sponsored study was planned to follow up the pilot, but that was quashed by the OCSE when the pilots findings threatened the justification for the agencies existence by demonstrating that non-payment of child support was not a serious problem. The Congressional Research Service also concluded at about the same time that no serious problem existed.

Promoted as a program that would reduce government spending, federal child-support enforcement has incurred a continuously increasing deficit. The overall financial impact of the child-support program on taxpayers is negative, the House Ways and Means Committee reports. Taxpayers lost $2.7 billion in 2002.

This money does not vanish. It ends up in the pockets and coffers of state officials, for whom it constitutes a lucrative source of revenue and income. Most states make a profit on their child-support program, according to Ways and Means, which notes that States are free to spend this profit in any manner the State sees fit. In other words, federal taxpayers (who were supposed to save money) subsidize state government operations through child-support. This also transforms family courts from impartial tribunals into revenue-generating engines for the state government.

In addition to penalties and interest, states profit through federal incentive payments based on the amount collected, as well as receiving 66 percent of operating costs and 90 percent of computer costs.  (When two states collaborate, both states qualify for the incentive payment as if each state had collected 100 percent of the money.) Federal outlays of almost $3.5 billion in 2002 allowed Ohio to collect $228 million and California to collect $640 million. There is a $200 million per year motive driving this system in Michigan alone, attorney Michael Tindall points out. It dances at the strings of federal money.

To collect these funds states must channel payments through their criminal enforcement machinery, further criminalizing involuntarily divorced parents and allowing the government to claim its perennial crackdowns are increasing collections despite the program operating at an increasing loss. In January 2000, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala announced that the federal and state child-support enforcement program broke new records in nationwide collections in fiscal year 1999, reaching $15.5 billion, nearly doubling the amount collected in 1992. Yet these figures are not what they appear.

In simple accounting terms, the General Accounting Office, which appears at face value all the official HHS assumptions and data for what is legally owed but unpaid, found that as a percentage of what it claims is owed, collections actually decreased during this period. In fiscal year 1996, collections represented 21 percent of the total amount due but dropped to 17 percent of the total amount due in fiscal year 2000, writes GAO? As a result the amount owed at the end of the period is greater than the amount owed at the beginning of the period.

These facts are gathered from a book published by Cumberland House Publishing Inc. The Title is Taken Into Custody- The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family. By Stephen Baskerville  For the sole purpose to stir up concern for rights of people. Something needs to be done.

I have had a case with the texas OAG office since 1996.  You are correct, they do not care if the children in texas get anything or not.  After all it is not their children who are going hungry. these caseworkers get paid, whether they do their job or not.  so what is the incentive to actually make sure  a dead beat pays child support!

My ex is over 200,000 behind in support including the arrears and interest on then amount he owes, I too was told to be happy that I am receiving something.  sometimes that "something" was 2.84 in a year. Now perhaps a caseworker in texas knows how to feed, clothe and provide shelter for 3 boys on that amount, but I wasn't able to do that.

Texas is a big fat joke!

I have been dealing with the Tx OAG for about 6-7 years now, and I am honestly surprised that people are still expecting the attorney general to do their job.  I really am.  I know more about my ex and his situation, having little to none of the resources that the AG has, than they do.  I work 2 jobs to make sure that my son is taken care of to the fullest, not just "get by."  I am not on assistance, I don't qualify.  The non custodial parent owes me $16,000+ in arrears, only works under the table cash jobs, and lives in a trailer on the beach.  These people have never done ANYTHING to help me or my son.  And I hate to say it, but they are correct, you really should be content that you were at least getting SOMETHING, I have gone 2 years plus without getting a penny.  And they haven't done a thing.  NOTHING.  The AG doesn't work for the child, or for the parent, they do nothing, and they don't feel bad about it.  They don't care.  I honestly, whole-heartedly believe I could do a better job myself.