Posted on 05/31/2003 2:42:54 PM PDT by sourcery
The child support enforcement program is a disease that has probably caused more suffering and death than any other government program. It was introduced by Congress in 1975 and has been engineered into a weapon of mass destruction in the years since. Despite sound evidence of destructive economic, social, and political effects and repeated cases of suicide linked to insufferable conditions created by current practices, politicians and administrative representatives continue to satisfy themselves with less than convincing denials, a few false and misleading statistics, and the claim that "it's for the children."
Various protests have generally been ignored, even when they are so serious as to cause harm to protesters. Potential danger lies in a particular form of protest: the hunger strike. The problems with child support enforcement, which were internationalized during the 1990s, have been met with occasional hunger strikes in several countries. Daniel Chang, a Chinese immigrant, has been the most recent to stage a hunger strike in the United States. His strike began on May 15th in Piscataway, New Jersey. Dr. Chang holds a Ph.D. in computer science and has a professional job. Despite federal involvement based on a pre-existing federal involvement in welfare, this case has nothing to do with the public welfare system.
The federal child support enforcement program is not for the children of course. The money spent on children is just as green whether paid under state rules or through a federal program. The incentive is the billions of dollars that Congress spends each year to keep people interested. States receive "incentive funds" in proportion to the amount of child support collected. In order to maximize the amount of funds they receive, states enrolled as many men as they could and arbitrarily increased the amount they were ordered to pay. All payments are counted as "collections." Everybody in government understands the scheme. It's pork. It's a brand of corruption older than government itself. A prospective enemy was demonized ("dads"), and people were called to arms against them; pledging their money and loyalty to the cause.
My early introduction to the child support enforcement system included a case in which a chiropractor had been involved in a serious auto-accident that resulted in brain damage. He was unable to continue his practice, and his savings was eaten up by medical bills. The state enforcement agency echoed the prevailing political sentiment ? "There is no excuse for not paying child support," and began confiscating social security benefits in an effort to satisfy the very high payments that had been set in light of his previously high income. The crippled man was left without sufficient income to pay for rent and food, and certainly without sufficient funds to pay a lawyer to attempt to straighten things out.
The reason for such harsh measures is the federal funding system. States receive money in proportion to the amount of child support "collected." Taking away social security benefits may have been worth $10 a month to the state; a little bit toward paying the salary of the collection agent who was robbing him of his sustenance.
This is the system that Dr. Chang is fighting. It isn't about reducing welfare expenditure. The money he owed is for support of his daughter from his first marriage. She is now 20 years old (an adult) and studying pharmacy at Rutgers University. He also has a 12 year old daughter from his second marriage. A well-paid professional, the austerity of his home and lifestyle is testimony to payment levels that are out of proportion to caring for children. Someone in his economic position would normally be able to raise two children in reasonably good style.
That judges have become beneficiaries in the enforcement scheme, pay linked to outcome, is a direct attack on judicial independence and therefore our Constitution ? in effect, an attack against the United States. American colonists raised this same issue in the Declaration of Independence; complaining about the King of Great Britain and his manipulations of democracy and the rule of law. "He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."
Dr. Chang has only protested once before. In June, 1989 he marched with others in New York City to protest the killing of peaceful protesting students and others by the Chinese government. The only pattern seems to be a loathing of government oppression. And this time it's personal. He has been jailed three times (once for 108 days) and has no drivers license due to child support debt. This represents two of the practices fathers so often complain about. Atop arbitrary, unjustifiably high child support orders, often the reason for debt to begin with, spending time in jail and being unable to drive make earning an income to pay child support (and support oneself) ever so much harder. The alleged success of such practices is really a few instances in which friends and family, who do not owe child support, have pitched in to pay debts. That led at least one judge to claim that the practices worked for him. By and large, the expanded practice has left tens of thousands of fathers without licenses and an untold number with unlimited jail time; often until debt is paid, with no way to pay the debt while in jail.
Dr. Chang's experience is one that has been repeated many times across the country over the past fifteen years. Sheriff's deputies literally kicked in the door to his apartment and arrested him at gunpoint - weeks after he had made necessary payments. Employees at the Middlesex County Child Support Department had refused to help weeks earlier after his employer had missed a child support payment and miscalculated another. His employer is charged with making payments after deducting them from his pay, a common practice since the early 1990s. Dr. Chang points out that his employer is generally cooperative with the agency, but had made errors after an end-of-year payroll conversion. He contacted the child support agency and sent the money himself, but that didn't stop the violent enforcement action weeks later.
Give me liberty, or give me death! Or as Dr. Chang puts it: "It is better to die once than live a thousand humiliations." Isn't this just the sort of thing that led to the American Revolution? Is it the kind of government behavior that led to student protests in Tienanmen Square? It's probably deeper than that.
The assault on a man's life typically begins with a mother who decides to "liberate" herself from marriage, simply dealing a father out of his own personal and family life. The process is exceptionally easy. The government has been dedicated to helping women "liberate" themselves from marriage for decades. Once extricated, women often move on to new relationships, taking his children, a portion of his property and future income with them. The engineering of a new life quite often involves keeping the old one (the ex-husband) at an extreme distance, totally disengaged from his own children.
The process and its effects involve the deepest emotions there are. But to that we have now added a government operation designed by people who are using the situation to steal. They're stealing money from these very same fathers, often making mere existence difficult. They are doing it in order to steal money from taxpayers who are paying for the system in proportion to the amount of money taken from fathers. Finally, as if that isn't enough, they're stealing freedom and even life.
Dr. Chang hopes to force a conclusion to his ordeal within one month of the start of his protest. If he can, he will eat again and return to work. He has two weeks vacation and has arranged for a two week extension. This defines his goal of ? in effect ? winning an argument within a month. His water and salt diet is dangerous, especially if it continues for long. Several people have met with him, and have encouraged him to stay alive. When he began his strike on May 15th, he weighed 166 pounds. When I last received an email message from him, May 28th, his weight was 16 pounds less - 150 pounds.
Dr. Chang has vowed to continue until his demands are met. They are as follows (in his own words).
1. I do not owe any money to ex-wife Yee-Sang Yen. 2. If I have a job, fair monthly support money will be sent to the child, Olivia Chang, directly without going through any child support department. 3. The Middlesex Child Support Department repairs the damage it caused to my credit, and informs the Motor Vehicle Services to erase all my driving suspensions and restore my driving privilege immediately. 4. The Middlesex Child Support Department reimburses me the following: $282 for restoring my driving licenses, the cost of repairing the door damaged by the sheriffs, $280 taken from my wallet, $20 for getting from the Middlesex County Court to home.
Yeeeesh!!! Hey, Chemist Cat, pay attention. In case you hadn't noticed, it isn't always up to the groom whether or not he stays married to the bride. If she wants to divorce him, for whatever reason or no reason at all, she can. Nothing to stop her. FURTHERMORE, she is GUARANTEED 1/3 to 1/2 or more of his after-tax take-home pay if she's had a kid by him. If she wants to remarry and start a new family, no problem!! If HE wants to remarry and start a new family ... pretty hard to do on a severely trimmed income.
This is IMMORAL and our society is paying the price, yet people like you remain blind to the reality of it, blaming it ALL on the men -- any woman who is a mother is an automatic saint, and any divorced father who doesn't pay hard cold cash out the nose and then some, was stupid for fathering a kid that you perceive, usually incorrectly, he didn't want. HENCE:
Time after time in this society, people hold big heavy buckets of liquid manure over their heads and pour it out on top of themselves, and then whine that gravity did it to them.
And we're ALL paying the price, in the form of drug-addicted, crime-prone, or suicidal teens boys with twisted examples of what Dads' roles are, girls with insane expectations of men, and on the whole, a deteriorating culture. With respect, I would say women/men with your kind of mindset are the ones pouring the manure on everybody's head.
My solution? Come up with a reasonable, affordable dollar amount sufficient to support a child -- say, the amount that the state pays foster parents to raise foster children. No matter the income of either parent, the amount should be the same for any kid. This would SEVERELY reduce the temptation of women to dump their husbands for any other than the most serious and justified reasons.
No father should have to pay to support a 20-year-old unless he wants to. It's a damned dirty system that mandates otherwise.
America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
http://video.ire.org/10650.ram (Requires RealPlayer)
I agree with Card; unfortunately, child support enforcement rarely has anything to do with a man abandoning anyone. The fact is that in America about 52 percent of marriages end up in divorce, and in about 90% of these cases the wife files for divorce, and the man gets the boot. This is hardly abandonment, eh? I did a personal study of this phenomenon for a Father's Group in Massaschuetts. I spent days and days pouring over divorce files in "Family Court" in a large city to obtain statistics. Results: 90% of the divorces were filed by the wife, (no surprise there, they are the ones who lose nothing but what the want to lose, the husband. Women are almost always awarded the house, the kids, the furnishings, the bank account, and a sizeable chunk of ex-hubby's income - typically a third of his gross in my state). Conversely, the men lose their family, their home, and 2/3rds of their income, (the govt. gets 1/3, the ex gets the other). Men were awared custody of their children in only 10% of the cases I examined, and usually this was due to gross behavior by the wife, such as drug addiction or severe neglect of the children.
I'm all for supporting the children, to whatever degree possible, after a divorce. But my experience working in a Father's Group was that the men not only did not abandon their children, they had to go to extraordinary measures just to get to see them. In our State, the State Department of Revenue now collects child support from the guys, (I say 'guys' because so few women are ever ordered to pay child support they are irrelevent to any serious discussion). The Dept. of Revenue is chartered as a tax collection beurocracy of the state, how they got involved in child support payments is interesting. While I understand there are good-for-nothing bums who get women pregnant and then leave them high and dry, I have known many a professional man who was compeltely broken down, financially and emotionally, after divorce. Most men are decent human beings, and they want to be a part of their children's lives. And most men have to fight like hell to make this happen; many get discouraged at the incredible difficulty and just give up. Though most fathers try hard to keep their children in their lives, the Courts grant only the customary bi-weekly "visitation" of their children. (fyi, "visitation" was a word first used in prisons when a family member visited an inmate). The system is corrupt, unfair, and utterly biased against men. I hear about the guys who skip out on the kids, but all the divorced men I've known have had to literally go broke with attorney's fees just trying to keep their children in their lives.
Time after time in this society, people hold big heavy buckets of liquid manure over their heads and pour it out on top of themselves, and then whine that gravity did it to them.
Precisely.
I would have used the word sanctimonious....but that's just me.
Your anecdote of hubby and yours experience is wonderful - but doesn't mean jack$hit to a guy who may or may not see his children, and has a set price on his head - regardless of his changing circumstances.
Orson Scott Card is a Mormon, a religion with a rich history of bigamy. I'm wondering where he got his morals? Judging from the Titles of some of Orson Card's books, he hardly seems like a philosopher I'd whose ways I'd chose to follow. "How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" ???
The law is too screwed up to accomplish this. If she walks out with the kids and she isn't a screaming crackhead or childbeater, she doesn't have to prove to the court that she's spending that child support on the kids. She can be eating porterhouse steak and caviar and driving gold Cadillac with that money, and feeding the kids old moldy peanut butter sandwiches and making them ride broken down bicycles wherever they go. Don't matter to the in-"justice" system.
BTW, I've seen many claims that women now initiate anywhere from 2/3s to 90% of all divorces. If that's the case, then perhaps someone should look into exactly why so many women feel that they are unfulfilled.
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