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I understood your point about getting a big number the first time. What you said was that you believe my number is low. What basis do you have for that?

OK, your second paragraph cleared something up for me. Things have changed dramatically. Child support -- all of it -- is now regulated under welfare law: All of it. Not just what we used to call "welfare cases," all cases. In every case in which child support is awarded (all cases involving children regardless of income etc), a rigid formula, politically determined by the state, under federal regulation is used to determine the amount to be awarded; and then the system owns you thereafter.

(I've heard of people who don't pay through the system, but they typically haven't been to court for a long time to get their order changed.)

The formulae used in the states set award levels arbitrarily high and give only a small token reduction if any at all for visitation time or even in cases of joint custody where parents have nearly equal time with their children. In the mid-1990s, a federal law was passed disallowing reductions in child support due to reduced income and in many cases unemployment. Ex-husbands cannot get clear of child support after DNA tests prove children aren't theirs, and neither have a growing number of men who've not been married to the mother and have proven through DNA tests that they aren't the fathers. They're even collecting child support from children who've been raped by older women producing a child. There are cases in which fathers have been wrongfully convicted of something, eventually prove it and get out of jail, but are faced with huge child support arrearages that they can't get adjusted, and even a guy who spent years as a prisoner of war and came home to face the same problem. They jail poor men who don't have money for indefinite periods hoping someone will show up one day and pay, and even harass men on death row.

The federal funding scheme rewarded states based on the amount they "collect," and allowed all money paid through the system to be classified as "collection." Therefore, the states favored arbitrarily high award levels and making it impossible to get reductions even for good reason. They also preferred to enroll good payors in the system to maximize (so-called) "collections."

If you read the following article, and the Court decision in Georgia, you might have a much better idea what I'm talking about. The judge in the case does raise the issue of design to increase funding in his decision to declare the Georgia guidelines unconstitutional. It's about time. These guidelines have been applied for more than a decade now, and this is the first time one has been declared unconstitutional - but this judge did do a good job of it. It's only a Superior Court judge however, and this case will be in the Georgia Supreme Court before the year is out. A small number of other practices have been declared unconstitutional in some states, but people making money from the system, well connected politically, stepped in to "minimize the damage."

Article on the Georgia case WITH A LINK TO THE COURT'S DECISION

I understood your point about getting a big number the first time. What you said was that you believe my number is low. What basis do you have for that?

I think your number is low because it feels low, but I gave it to you because even at that low a percentage it's still clearly a problem.

OK, your second paragraph cleared something up for me. Things have changed dramatically. Child support -- all of it -- is now regulated under welfare law: All of it.

OK now that is definitely no good. The government should only ever get involved if there's a problem, there's only two things government is good at: problem solving and problem making. If they don't have one to solve they'll make one.

Not just what we used to call "welfare cases," all cases. In every case in which child support is awarded (all cases involving children regardless of income etc), a rigid formula, politically determined by the state, under federal regulation is used to determine the amount to be awarded; and then the system owns you thereafter.

In some ways a formula might be a good idea, in others it's no good. Having some cracker head judge who only just met these people and is hoping to never see them again pull some random number out of his posterior wasn't a good system. I remember that from the government offices, women comparing how much the deadbeat wasn't paying them, and those numbers varied wildly and with no seeming logic. Generally the simpler formulas are the best, X% of gross per kid is probably the best bet. Something where those that make more pay more, but not in a punitive way.

The formulae used in the states set award levels arbitrarily high and give only a small token reduction if any at all for visitation time or even in cases of joint custody where parents have nearly equal time with their children.

Don't know if visitation time should count, it's not like real parenting happens then, joint custody should never involve child support. To me child support is paying for the priviledge of not actually having to raise your own kids, basically paying your ex-wife to be a nanny. If you've got joint custody you're raising the kid.

skipping a bunch of F'd up stuff I'd already heard about and agreed was a definite problem with the system.

The federal funding scheme rewarded states based on the amount they "collect," and allowed all money paid through the system to be classified as "collection." Therefore, the states favored arbitrarily high award levels and making it impossible to get reductions even for good reason. They also preferred to enroll good payors in the system to maximize (so-called) "collections."

Sounds like a bad mix of federal involvement and states' rights. If the feds are gonna play in the field then they have to play all the way, clearly here they're just getting their toes wet and leaving the rest up to the states. That's always bad.

If you read the following article, and the Court decision in Georgia, you might have a much better idea what I'm talking about.

I read that, but it was unclear to me how the whole picture was constructed. It showed there were some definite problems but I didn't glean the high level of federal involvement. It's clear that there's a problem, there always is when the feds involved. But we need to not over correct the problem. The initial problem was deadbeat dads refusing to pay their child support and their ex-wives being completely powerless to do anything about it. Since then the situation has been over corrected and the solution is a problem in it's own right.

To me there's 3 problems:
1 - there are deadbeat dads, guys that just don't feel like paying their child support and have no good reason or excuse.
2 - an ex-wife has no recourse on her own (even still now with the federal involvement, since it's all the fed's now) to enforce a child support settlement, every other creditor in the country has more ability to get money out of you than your ex-wife (hypothetical "you"s here), that's messed up.
3 - in standard fashion the fed has gotten over involved and instead of being a useful mutual layer for child support enforcement regardless of the states involved is being nutty and making up dorky rules as they go.

To me if we gave exes the same powers and abilities as corporations in collecting bad spousal debt (child support and alimony, might as well throw that in there too) that would solve the basic problem. Any solution that pretends there's no such thing as deadbeat dads won't work, then we'll just repeat the cycle, we'll be back in the situation we were in during tyhe 70s and 80s. The current solution is too far but we can't lose sight of the fact that it's a bad attempt to solve a real problem.