Are Bayh and Obama using too big a stick in Responsible Fatherhood Bill?

[Karmadillo]

http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_21292001.shtml

Barack Obama's Responsible Fatherhood Bill: Small Carrot, Big Stick
By Mike McCormick & Glenn Sacks
Jul 14, 2007

U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) recently introduced the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007, which they say will address our "national epidemic of absentee fathers." Obama and Bayh are correct that fatherless children are dramatically more likely to commit crimes, drop out of school, use drugs, or get pregnant than children who have fathers in their homes. The Responsible Fatherhood Act is explicitly a carrot and stick approach. The problem is that the carrot is too small, and the stick is already too big.

Currently many noncustodial fathers—particularly African-American and Latino fathers, upon whom Obama often focuses—are required to pay their child support to the state to reimburse the cost of public assistance, instead of to the children's mothers. This is demoralizing for low-income men struggling to make a difference in their kids' lives.

The Responsible Fathers Act will make this money go directly to the mothers, instead of the state, a policy which research shows helps bring fathers closer to their children. The bill will also expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and provide fathers with job training services.

All of these are good things, but the bill's stick—increasing federal reimbursements for child support enforcement--is damaging and misguided. Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement data shows that two-thirds of those behind on child support nationwide earn poverty-level wages; less than four percent of the national child support debt is owed by those earning $40,000 or more a year.

Most "deadbeat dads" are low-income men who are unable to meet the demands of the child support system because of their employment problems. Stepping up already draconian enforcement only makes it more difficult for them to play a meaningful role in their children's lives.

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[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. I see many sides of this... and I think you may be right.

I grew up fatherless, child support was $90 per month, and it was usually paid... my brother's dad was ordered to pay a little less than that, and it usually didn't show up. He would even go as far as quitting his job whenever the paperwork caught up with him and started to get it pulled from his check.

When my ex and I divorced 15 years ago, I knew he wouldn't be able to pay as much as the court would award me, and frankly, I didn't need that much. We agreed he would pay $500 per month (3 kids), it was just enough to cover the rent back then and I knew I could manage everything else even with a min. wage job. I had to use Welfare or food stamps for a couple of months, and they went after him with a vengeance to try and get him to send the money through them, but neither of us was gonna let that happen. I would have been out of luck for 1-2 months just while they forwarded the payments. I even had to sign an affidavit that he had paid faithfully every month because the state of AZ was going to take his Drivers License away for 'non-payment'. It was ridiculous and it took 3 years to sort out.

[rwenos]

2. Give Me a Break

As a father, and as a member of the California Bar who has brought his share of child support cases--and also defended child support contempt defendants--I can tell you that most of the guys who pay NO child support take the attitude that it sure was fun to make that kid -- but now the County can pay for it.

One of those guys asked me, after paying ZERO child support (not one penny) for three years after his child was born -- and the County was finally going after him -- "Do you mean that (the County welfare payments to the mother of his child) isn't FREE MONEY?"

It doesn't seem like such a great idea to have it paid directly to Mom either. The County gets wage garnishments in place right away. The County gets return calls from Bank of America, when the bank is served with a wage garnishment. Mom would not be treated so well. It would be easier for Sperm Donor to escape responsibility.

My own gender disappoints me regularly. More often than not, the attitude is "Hey dude, it's more fun to make 'em than to pay for 'em."

[LWolf]

8. A member of the CA bar?

Too bad my son can't afford a retainer. The state of CA, which he no longer lives in, yanked his driver's license for non-payment of child support, which crossed over into his new state and left him unable to drive here, either. Hard to work that way.

The little catch: they are trying to collect child support from a dad who has custody of his son, and who has been telling them for 3 years now that he has custody. After a year of phone calls, faxes, and conversations, he finally found someone in the child support enforcement dept. that would take a fax of his custody papers and other evidence. They said they'd "review" it and get back to him. When they got around to it.

Meanwhile, his new state has been trying, for 3 years, to collect child support from the child's mother, who still lives in CA. The 2 states don't, and so far won't, talk to each other. Legal aid here told my son they couldn't help him because it was California law. California legal aid won't help because he is not a CA resident.

Meanwhile, he can't work. His job required a valid driver's license. He did find a local lawyer willing to take on the case...for a $5,000.00 retainer. Right.

How is any of this helping support my grandson? I'm supporting him.

CA child support enforcement was never able to collect any child support from the father of my 2 sons. Never. I raised them without help. Why could they not catch up with the man who worked under the table to avoid paying, but they can yank the license of a custodial parent for not paying the non-custodial parent child support for a child she isn't raising?

When my grandson did live with his mother, my son paid child support. He paid it to the state as required. It was very frustrating to see the constant neglect the child was suffering. So, in addition to the required child support payments to the state (to reimburse them for her welfare), he also bought clothes, toys, food, etc. to deliver directly. He didn't spare any resources.

What is the goal? That the child be cared for, or that the state be reimbursed for subsistence payments?

How does making a father pay the state back benefit the child in any way?

[rwenos]

10. Means and Ends

"What is the goal? That the child be cared for, or that the state be reimbursed for subsistence payments?"

OBVIOUSLY, BOTH ARE GOALS.
{Using capitals not to shout, but just to provide visual reference to who's speaking.)

How does making a father pay the state back benefit the child in any way?

THAT PART OF IT ISN'T TO BENEFIT THE CHILD, IT'S TO PAY BACK THE COUNTY FOR HAVING PAID THE CHILD SUPPORT "IN LOCO PARENTIS."

Sounds like your son needs a lawyer pretty bad. He certainly isn't going to make matters any better by ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away. By the way, I don't do family law anymore. Thank God!

[BlueIris]

12. What's this? A post from a SANE person?

Ah, how refreshing. Your perspective is a rare one around these parts.

[sendero]

14. I believe in DUE PROCESS....

... and I don't care how many dads are scofflaws, it is reprehensible to treat those that aren't like they are.

I'll spare you my personal experience in the matter, I'll just say that no where in our legal system is the PRESUMPTION OF GUILT so clearly entrenched as the family law areas, and it is WRONG.

[Supersedeas]

15. I hear ya - the allow the State handle it is pervasive

[TankLV]

3. Well - let's see - these lazy asshole are perfectly willing to let the MOTHERS shoulder ALL the

burden or raising THEIR child?! Seems about right...

Of course, the MOTHER has no choice in the matter, because SHE had the temerity to HAVE the child, right?

Lazy, fucking, WORTHLESS bastards! Maybe they should have thought about this "problem" BEFORE they unzipped their pants, huh?

[rwenos]

4. And I thought I'd get Jumped

I thought for sure I'd get hammered for my war story -- absolutely true, happened in Orange County Family Court in about 1999.

I would jump in front of a train for my kid. We eat dinner together as a family every night. The sperm donor approach -- I just don't get it.

[JANdad]

6. Who are you writing about here?

The "incubator" or the "sperm donor"

"Lazy, fucking, WORTHLESS bastards! Maybe they should have thought about this "problem" BEFORE they unzipped their pants, huh?"

[rwenos]

11. I was writing about the Sperm Donor

Don't know who was meant by "lazy bastards." Not my statement.

[maximusveritas]

5. Not a chance. Look at who wrote this article,

A couple "men's/father's rights" activists.
If they think this bill is too harsh on deadbeat dads, it's probably a pretty decent bill.

[SoxFan]

7. I call B.S. on the authors

Many of the deadbeat dads who are supposedly below the poverty line are playing a slick game. They have very little reported, taxable income, because they work under the table to avoid having their wages garnished by the state child support enforcement office.

I've worked on a number of child support cases (on the mother's side), and you'd be amazed how much money some of these slugs actually make.

[OHdem10]

9. Outsource good paying jobs, send jobs around the

world, create the situation where people's income
is dropping------there is something wrong with this
picture.

I am in no way defending DeadBeat Dads. I truly support
the idea that something should be done.. Too my thinking
this is too important an issue just to try to pass a law.

I do not know---this comes so out of the blue.

Obama, watch Bayh.

[Katherine Brengle]

13. Earning poverty level wages?

So are a lot of people who take care of their children.

It's hard, yeah. Sure it's hard. But being poor doesn't absolve anyone from caring for the children they produce.

My mother never got a penny of child support from my father for me or my sister - he took off, and no matter what she did nothing happened. I have very little sympathy for men who father children and then abandon them.

[BlueIris]

16. Kick. This is a decent discussion.