Posted on 04/25/2002 4:46:27 AM PDT by RogerFGay
A Georgia court has declared the state’s child support guidelines unconstitutional. The decision bans the use of a presumptively correct formula that produces arbitrarily high awards, a universal practice in the United States since 1990. The consequences of a nationwide ban could extend well beyond allowing courts to set child support awards at reasonable levels.
The judgment states three requirements for constitutionally acceptable child support decisions. Both parents have an equal obligation to support their children in accordance with their relative means to do so; regardless of their gender and custodial status. The amount awarded as “child support” must be limited to address only the need for financial support of dependent children. Child support awards must be rationally related to the relevant facts and circumstances of each case.
Child support law existed in the thirteen colonies and has existed in the states since the beginning of the nation’s history. Not surprisingly, the requirements presented in the Georgia judgment are reminiscent of traditional law that developed through more than two hundred years of case precedent. Federal reforms effectively blocked the application of established legal principles by extending the use of politically controlled formulae, known as child support guidelines, to non-welfare cases. State courts have been required to apply their state’s formula in every child support case and presume that results are correct.
Despite a federal requirement for states to review their guidelines to assure that their use results in a just and appropriate award in every case, no state has ever validated the logic of their guidelines. According to child support collection entrepreneur Robert Williams who is the primary designer of most state guidelines, the objective was to increase the average amount of an award by two and a half times. It is this practice in particular, arbitrarily increasing awards by using a presumptively correct formula that the Georgia court found unconstitutional.
Since the federal reforms took effect, mathematical studies performed by the Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology (PICSLT) have confirmed the necessity of the three principles in defining the logic for properly determining child support awards. The overpayment resulting from the use of guidelines has become known as hidden alimony.
On the other side of the issue is a strange coalition of special interest groups that profit from the current system. These include state enforcement agencies, private collection businesses, and women’s groups that have sought higher financial benefits for divorce. Billions of dollars in federal funding have driven the system, creating a vast network of political friends.
It was the reforms themselves that were largely responsible for bringing the child support collection industry into existence. Private collection agencies, such as the one owned by Robert Williams, keep approximately 15 percent of all the money they collect. The government enforcement system is also rewarded by an increase in federal funding in proportion to the amount collected. During the 1990s, these financial benefits led to a unique form of mutual support and power sharing between government and private agencies under the rubric of privatization.
The coalition exerted enormous influence on government policy and managed a persuasive propaganda campaign against a group they labelled “deadbeat dads.” Promoters projected substantial drops in welfare rolls by “forcing fathers to pay.” Taxpayers were promised significant savings. But the promise was not substantiated by credible feasibility studies and the savings did not materialize. Significant reductions in welfare dependency were only experienced along with a general drop in unemployment.
The reforms drove many fathers into debt and poverty, at times resulting in jail sentences for non-payment. The new system decreased their ability to spend time with their children, increased demands on temporarily unemployed fathers who sought reductions, forced low income fathers to work in the cash economy to survive, and even forced payments from some men who had never met the mother. Billions of dollars have been collected that cannot be dispersed. The Georgia court, rightly so, determined that the child support system subjects parents, especially fathers, to unnecessary government interference.
Certain administrative procedures for setting and enforcing child support awards have also been declared unconstitutional in Michigan and Minnesota. Child support enforcement agencies exercise powers reserved for the judiciary. States have done little to reform their systems and it may take further action to compel states to operate constitutionally.
The fate of the child support system is largely in the hands of attorneys, who need to make greater efforts to exercise the constitutional role of the judicial branch. At least twenty billion dollars has been paid in court costs and attorneys’ fees in the process of arbitrarily increasing award amounts over ten years. That is approximately the total amount of child support legally due each year. Lawyers are now set to experience another windfall if guidelines are determined unconstitutional throughout the country as millions of non-custodial parents return to the courts to have their orders reduced to reasonable levels.
The projected reduction in debt would take much of the wind from the sails of the child support collection industry, possibly eliminating financial influences that have distorted welfare reform efforts for more than two decades. This in turn could significantly reduce federal interest in operating a child support enforcement system that manages non-welfare cases.
If courts are to continue to use child support guidelines, greater emphasis needs to be placed on credible engineering research and development. Designs need to be validated to the extent possible before they are put into use and bad ideas need to be rejected before they harm the public. The application of a presumptively correct formula for determining child support awards is a profound deviation from established constitutional process that demands careful and constant scrutiny.
Roger F. Gay is lead researcher on Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology. He can be reached at picslt@mail.lawguru.com.
Yep! Equal rights don't quite mean what they sound like, huh?
Absent a written contract in which the father guarantees support (and marriage could be presumed such a contract), men should have no responsibility for child support whatsoever.
I don't know that I would say marriage constitutes a contract to provide for any children, but I understand your argument.
A woman has the choice whether or not to carry a baby to term, and if she chooses to do so without a clear contract with the father to be a co-parent, then it's HERS.
Yes, this is the "slippery slope" we have encountered by legalizing abortion and giving the father no legal say. I suspect this issue is going to hit the fan in the near future. If the woman has sole legal control over having the baby or aborting it, then it is HER property(as much as I disagree with the notion, its the law). If the man helped create it, and its legal to kill it before its born, and if its born, the father would face a legal financial duty, then the father would have the same right to have it "aborted" as the mother. What the left has disguised as "a woman's right to choose" may come back and bite them in the arse. The courts are out of their minds if they say a man has entered into a legal contract at conception, and the woman holds the sole authority as to whether the contract has to be honored.
Implement this policy and watch the ranks of welfare dependent single mothers drop like a rock.
Probably, but without a change in the "welfare mindset", we would have protests, riots and killing widespread before it ever got better. There are millions of people who would not know what to do if this was taken away from them.
Too many to count.
The simple argument is that women have two choices about having children. First, the choice of having sex. Second, the choice of having an abortion. Men only have one; the choice of having sex. After sex, they have no control, only obligation.
Something has to change here. The system is totally skewed towards women. If sex is a contract, then women shouldn't be able to have abortion except for medical emergencies. And I hate the argument that It's a woman's body, and therefore a woman's choice. First of all, the baby's body is involved too. Second, what do you think the man uses to make his money? A man's body is involved - for at least 18 years.
But if abortion will never be illegalized, then we should mandate paternal notification. If a women isn't comfortable notifying a man that she is carrying his baby, then she shouldn't have sex with him. And when a man is notified, he should have a predetermined amount of time to notify the woman of his intentions of being a sperm donor or father. If he decides to be a father, then he should be legally entitled to visitation and be legally responsible for financial and other support.
People seem to get stuck up on the idea that a man should only be responsible to children through marriage when the more interesting question is if a man should be able to stop a woman from having an abortion so that he can raise the child.
But let us suppose that the parent is in and out of jobs or the hours frequently change, or other significant situations, etc.; the system doesn't adapt well. Consequently the arrearages can quickly amount up or in the event of very low support, the discovery doesn't occur until much later then the child is deprived. The only way I can see to solve the situation would be in a cashless society where every penney is tracked by a national computer and make adjustments as necessary. I'm not advocating this but the current system is so hit and miss it is ridiculous.
You shouldn't opine when you don't have a clue about what you are talking about.
The judge consented to this EVEN THOUGH I HAD BEEN MARRIED FOR TWO YEARS AND HAD A BRAND NEW BABY DAUGHTER NOT YET ONE YEAR OLD.
My ex-wife's attorney argued that "the older children should have precedence," and even though I had faithfully paid the support for the past five years since our divorce, it didn't matter to that judge. Not even that the ex was just angry about my remarriage and because I had refused to instantly shell out $2,000 for braces she thought our daughter needed.
[This is one of the subtle "gotchas" resulting from divorce: Decisions you could have made together while you were married, and which would have been made pragmatically, are now enforceable by law, so you have no say-so in the matter].
Anyway, although I paid what I could, bumping the monthly up to $850 which ended my ability to have my children stay with me during the summer because I simply could not afford it (You have to pay child support when children stay with you unless they are there for at least 12 months). Because of that one single action, my children were estranged from me, and still are today even though in their Twenties.
This was an unGodly, unconscionable law passed (as the article mentions) by the strong efforts of trial attorneys. It was a shakedown of mammoth proportions.
That I should have had to pay over a thousand dollars a month to my ex-wife, on a salary of $40,000 a year and with a new wife who was a stay-at-home mom with a new baby is simply outrageous no matter how you slice it.
And "in kind" payments never count. I couldn't just provide clothing and other necessities--or wants for that matter--to the children along with a modest amount of support. No, it had to be cash on the barrelhead and then into the pockets of my ex-wife who was accountable to no one--least of all to me--as to how she spent it.
I pray this is the beginning of the end for this house of cards.
Yes, I like to call that the "WAAAAAHHHHHH" or "shout down" argument because it is devoid of any reason or logic, and is childishly used by those who have no justification for their position.
The notion that the female becomes the sole legal owner of the males sperm once it is injected into her is crazy, and has only become an issue since legal abortion. Before, such (now seen as)important legal issues were never even fathomed and thus not considered. See, when its understood that the man and woman have created a human being, and is thus protected by the Constitution, then these are moot points. Defining a living human as something different has opened up a can of worms where legal framework has to be destroyed or forgotten to justify a "woman has all control" point of view. Its quite sad.
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.