Bill: "Here's how it's gonna work, Comrade Dear. Ah will cut welfare significantly in Mah terms, and get all that credit. Then, during YOUR eight years, YOU will bring it back, call it Father's Rights, or somethin'. Genius!!"
Posted on 02/05/2008 1:10:52 PM PST by PercivalWalks
"Clinton also recognizes that many states’ child support guidelines are excessive, noting:
"'Child support payments can represent half of [low-income] men's income, and can provide a strong incentive to work in the underground economy.'
"Clinton’s proposals are a good start, but much more needs to be done to address the problems low-income fathers face."
My new co-authored column, Hillary Clinton’s Youth Opportunity Agenda Will Help Low-Income Fathers (Black Press USA Network, 1/25/08), discusses some small but significant proposals from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to resolve the child support problems faced by many low-income African-American fathers. The proposals are based on the Urban League’s 2006 report on the state of black America, which concluded that the child support system and its abuses are a major problem for African-American men.
The column, co-authored with Mike McCormick, Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, is below. Clinton's child support reform proposals are discussed here and here, along with her misguided position in favor of restoring federal child support enforcement budget cuts.
Hillary Clinton’s Youth Opportunity Agenda Will Help Low-Income Fathers
By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks
It is rare for a major politician to propose well-informed measures about fathers and fatherhood during an election campaign. While Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is not normally a beloved figure in the fatherhood movement, her new Youth Opportunity Agenda reflects a commendable understanding of the problems faced by African-American fathers.
The Urban League’s 2006 report on the state of black America concluded that the child support system and its abuses are a major problem for African-American men. The report found that the system represents a large, hidden “tax” on the already meager earnings of many black men. This tax drives some out of their children’s lives, and either underground or into crime.
Half of uneducated African American men ages 25-34 are non-custodial fathers. The child support they struggle to pay usually does not go to their children, but instead goes to the state to reimburse the cost of public assistance, including welfare, for the mother and children. This is demoralizing for low-income men struggling to make a difference in their kids’ lives. Some of these fathers even live with their children and their children’s mothers, yet their wages are still garnisheed to pay child support to the state.
Research shows that allowing the child support to go directly to the custodial parent promotes fathers’ bonds with their kids. Federal incentive funds mold the states’ child support policies. Clinton pledges to “work with states and counties to ensure that they have support and incentives to pass on every dollar of child support” directly to the men’s children.
Many minority noncustodial fathers have spent time in prison, often for nonviolent drug offenses. Under the current system, these men rack up thousands of dollars in child support arrearages while they are incarcerated. Interest accrues rapidly, and upon release many ex-offenders struggle under a staggering debt they could never hope to pay off. Some even return to jail for nonpayment.
To address this problem, Clinton says she will “encourage states to take more realistic, cooperative approaches to managing arrears, so that fathers leaving prison are not immediately saddled with unrealistic payment obligations.”
Clinton also recognizes that many states’ child support guidelines are excessive, noting:
“Child support payments can represent half of [low-income] men's income, and can provide a strong incentive to work in the underground economy.”
According to the Urban League, low-income men in arrears on child support sometimes keep as little as a third of their paychecks.
Clinton’s proposals are a good start, but much more needs to be done to address the problems low-income fathers face. Economist Harry Holzer, a co-author of the Urban League report, recommends forgiving the arrearages that low-income fathers owe to the government. While this proposal may not be politically popular, it makes very good policy.
Low-income fathers’ arrearages mount in large part because the child support system is impervious to the economic realities low-income fathers face, such as layoffs, wage cuts, chronic unemployment, and work-related injuries. Low-income fathers have very little access to affordable legal help, and an unemployed construction worker usually doesn’t have the money to get professional legal assistance to help him get a child support modification. According to an Urban Institute study, less than one in 20 non-custodial parents who suffer substantial income drops are able to get courts to reduce their child support payments.
California’s Compromise of Arrears Program provides an example of the type of pragmatic approach these men need. According to a California Judicial Council report, 80% of California child support debtors earn poverty level wages, and over a quarter of the arrears total is interest. Under COAP, these obligors can settle their paper debts to the state for realistic amounts.
Sacramento legislative advocate Michael Robinson of the California Alliance for Families and Children, which worked on the legislation, explains:
“Rather than engaging in the ‘we’ll crack down on deadbeats’ chest-thumping so often employed by politicians, COAP is a common sense, everybody wins solution. Instead of hounding and jailing low income dads, the COAP program allows these dads to provide their children real support, both emotional and financial.”
The federal government should use its incentive funds to influence states to institute similar and more extensive programs. The costs of current policies far outweigh the value of the child support collected. Allowing more low-income men to be functional fathers benefits them, their children, and their children’s mothers.
Elections usually are a bad time for family policy, as applause lines about punishing “deadbeat dads” are often substituted for rational, informed thinking about fathers and fatherhood. Several candidates have been bashing so-called "deadbeat dads," including Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Bill Richardson. Clinton’s proposals are a modest but tangible step forward in addressing the weighty issues low-income dads face.
Glenn Sacks, www.GlennSacks.com
Just what I need, the likes of Hillary Clinton becoming my advocate.
Can this nation stoop any fricken lower?
Hillary could care a rat’s Patootie about Fathers Rights.
This wins the award for Most Insincere Pandering of the 2008 election.
It’s amazing how everything this woman does, she does to benefit herself first. I guess she wants to get some of the male African-American vote (to undercut Obama). Can she ever do something that is simply the right thing to do, without any benefit to herself? This is of course a rhetorical question.
This is where Arnold appears and says this is the greatest mindf*ck of them aall.
This wins the award for Most Insincere Pandering of the 2008 election.
**********************************************
elections not over yet.
This isn’t an African-American issue. This is divorce dads of all races and she gets credit for being the first national politician to raise it in favor of dads.
Dad’s are routinely treated as second class citizens, denied equal time with their kids and made to pay exorbitant amounts for kids they don’t even get to see much.
Wow! This is about as believable as McCain saying he will build a fence!
What’s next? Free ham trees?
While my stand on “dead-beat dads” remains firm, I do know a few dad’s that are taking active roles in their kids lives while holding down a good job and going to school. You can’t blame a singular person for marital arrangements going astray. That being said, the majority of fathers paying child support want nothing to do with their kids or their mothers and are complaining because the child support they are paying is taking away from their weed money. The message that needs to be sent to these men is not one of reassurance that the government will reduce what they have to pay, but one of responsibility. Stop knocking up 15 year old girls and ruining their lives, get a job, go to/finish school, stop buying/selling drugs, and take responsibility for your actions.
There’s so much we need to do to get father’s rights back.
Girlfriend is helping those nasty male chauvinist pigs..????
For shame...
Turn in your NOW life membership card..
Grabbing wallet...
What was missed was child support to single Mom’s and married Mom’s who initiate breakup of the family provide the same incentives to destroy the family as welfare rights did in the 1960s. It’s even worse because the Dad’s quit their fast food job and get a cash job so they can earn something.
Lastly, how come judges can throw these so called Dad’s in jail without a specific law or trial but John McCain and dems declare criminal rights for terrorists? I hate to agree here that there is a big problem.
Bill: "Here's how it's gonna work, Comrade Dear. Ah will cut welfare significantly in Mah terms, and get all that credit. Then, during YOUR eight years, YOU will bring it back, call it Father's Rights, or somethin'. Genius!!"
Note to Black Press: It’s only half when there is several with several different women.
That is true in some cases, but not all. What Hillary is doing is ensuring that mothers remain in the workforce and that they will place their children in unionized daycare and universal preK.
Oprah isn’t going to like this. This hurts her business of promoting female victimhood for profit racket thats made her a billionaire.
Obama should come out and say, “vote for me and I promise you will never hear from the Clintons again.”
That would get my vote.
“...which concluded that the child support system and its abuses are a major problem for African-American men.”
Yeah. Because we all no its never been a problem for those white guys!
Good grief. I completely agree (on this single topic) and they still manage to piss me off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.