Child Support Overpaid by $15-20 Billion

Men's News Daily ^ | July 3, 2002 | Roger F. Gay

[w1andsodidwe]

My suspicion is that you are either young and naive or work for the system in one of those so-called "Child Protective Services" that would have made Himmler proud.

Actually I am over 50 and a very conservative computer programmer. I just don't respect people who make the children suffer when a divorce occurs. It really messes up a kid to have their parents continually at odds with each other.

Yeah, divorce happens and you hate your spouse, but you are the adult and owe it to your kids to not make their lives miserable. I also know how unfair it is that women get the kids most often. I think that should change, but just because it hasn't yet, doesn't mean that the kids have to take the brunt of it.

[w1andsodidwe]

Love can't be court ordered. Love toward children can be seen as an unvarying attention to duty, devotion of time and effort to see they are raised according to principals of right and freedom, feeding and clothing and dicipline according to custom and society. Emotion has nothing to do with it, and be a plus OR a minus in the raising

Of course, people who love their children are emotionally attached to them.

Well if you don't have an emotional attachment to your children, then I guess they are better off with no relationship with you. Too bad for you. You will miss a lot.

[habaes corpussel]

What are we becoming? I agree the system needs to be scraped and made equal. But the fact is, you brought the child into the world, Both are responsible, equally. That includes visitation. The norm should be joint custody and not simply visitation, unless there is an abuse. The Family Court system in this country is in the need of a bad overhaul. I also think that people should be charged $10,000 for a marriage license and $1000.00 for the divorce. It will make people think.

[William Terrell]

Do you have or have had children? I raised three and loved each one. Love of children has little to do with emotion. Emotion comes and goes, but children are constant. The are many times when you absolutely don't "love" them, but you must do beyond the limits of endurance for them at those times also, specifically at those times.

Mary Poppins was a fictional character, so are all the "roll models" on television. The issue is court ordered "love", which you seem to think exists. Love and duty to children can no more be court ordered than the freezing point of water or the value of Pi be changed by legislation.

I think you are not being honest with yourself.

[balrog666]

I just don't respect people who make the children suffer when a divorce occurs. It really messes up a kid to have their parents continually at odds with each other.

I agree. But the current system makes it too easy for a woman to exact revenge, engage in spiteful tactics without cost, and use and abuse her children, her ex-husband, and the welfare system. And given the easy means and the extreme lack of culpability, a great many women who might otherwise condemn such practices, indulge in it. So, obviously, the welfare of their own children is rarely their highest priority.

[aruanan]

Arizona State University psychology professor Sanford Braver discusses the problem in his landmark book Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths. He presents an example of a case in New York in which a father was ordered to pay more than $12,000 per year for support of his two children. (page 72) There was no great disparity in income between the parents and they spent nearly equal time caring for their children. If the shared parenting arrangment changed slightly the legal definition of each parent would have been reversed and the mother would have been ordered to pay about $10,000 per year to the father. The difference of $22,000 per year depended on only one overnight stay per week.

Shouldn't this read, "The difference of $2,000 per year"?

[balrog666]

Shouldn't this read, "The difference of $2,000 per year"?

No, the father pays $12,000 per year to the mother in child support.
If the children spent just a little more time with the father, the mother would have to pay the father $10,000 per year in child support.

Difference: a swing of $22,000 per year.

[Orangedog]

It's not about your feeling, it's about the kids.

This tired old connard about it being "about the kids" is a crock. You, ma'am, are more concerned with protecting the sense of intitlement that man-haters, the industry and goverment hacks have bestowed upon women in the domestic courts than anything that is "for the kids". You're not fooling anyone here with the "it's about the kids" mantra. We all know that it is really about money and control. But fear not, malicsious mothers are still a protected class and there are plenty of government hacks to preserve their "right" to extort alimony from the ex husbands above and beyond what it really costs to raise a child. Your fiefdom is safe. Mothers will still be able to use their children as pawns to in extortion. NOW and the other hateful women's groups have done a good job of stacking the deck, making the rules to their liking, and putting the right judges on the bench to do their bidding. But know this...the system breaks more and more fathers every day. They are beginning to wake up to what is being done to their families and how their own children are being used by the "Big-Sister" industry for nothing more than financial gain and revenge. More fathers who have been designated as "visitors" in their children's lives by Big-Sister are starting to register to vote and eventually will be a large enough voting block to get the biased judges off of the bench and their cohorts out of the legislatures. It will take at least a generation for this to happen. In the mean time, you and your kind have done fine job of destroying the American family and turning fathers into second-class citizens. Fathers will continue to be their puppets for many years to come. We will all continue to pay up and shut up until our children are grown. To you, a fathers love MUST have a dollar amount attached to it. Isn't it funny how that what you say is "in the child's best interest" is also always in the mother's financial best interest as well?

[William Terrell]

I don't know that it'll take twenty-five years. Four years ago I rarely saw an article about child-support inequities, much less court action, or any other kind of action. Two years ago I began to see a definite rise at the male grass roots level. If a good, solid case of mistaken child support hits the Supreme Court, the feminists can kiss the child-support-regardless-of-fatherhood end, at least, goodbye. That alone may break the system's back.

[Orangedog]

Are there any cases that appear to be on their way to the SCOTUS? There was a case in Ohio brought by Don Hubin to the Ohio Supreme Court, asking them to clearify the Ohio child support statute to allow for a parental time adjustment in the guidelines. It took something like 7 years to get that far, and the Ohio supremes refused to reverse the appellet courts ruling, with a one sentance statement and wouldn't even write an opinion. Has there ever been anything like a CS issue ever reached the SCOTUS?

[William Terrell]

I'd doubt it. An SC case would be cited too much for anybody to ignore. There might have been some cases pending, but the Ashwander v TVA (I'm pretty sure) case would keep constitutional issues out of consideration if there were anything else they can resolve the case on.

The right case would have to lock other issues out so they would have to consider the constitutionality of the laws behind the issue. I think the issue would be unequal access to the law created by the misprision of fraud allowed by the administrative court, in turn created by the courts using the current regulations or laws. The target would be the regulations and laws. Possibly the current child support system is a Bill of Attainder.

This is just my theory. I'm not a lawyer.

[RogerFGay]

Shouldn't this read, "The difference of $2,000 per year"?

No; $22,000. It's the difference between paying $12,000 and receiving $10,000.

[RogerFGay]

I think fathers are going to have to make a lot more noise before the USSC takes a child support case. Right now, the most interesting thing I know of in the US is the Georgia ruling that their guidelines are unconstitutional.

In the UK, I've just recieved word that there's a serious case in the courts about the division of the "Child Benefit" (European version of a dependent tax deduction). A father with exactly 50-50 time sharing is being supported in his suit to split the Child Beneift. Currently, they give it all to the mother.

In Sweden, the modified child support scheme that was heavily influenced by Clinton political advisors about five years ago has been scheduled for political review. This isn't just like the state guideline reviews in the US. It's a more serious step following widespread acknowledgement -- by the government included -- that it's all screwed up now.

[aruanan]

No; $22,000. It's the difference between paying $12,000 and receiving $10,000.

My point. It's an unreal difference since people either pay or receive rather than receive and then have to pay. In the few cases where someone has to receive $10K for a number of years and then have to pay $12K for another period of time, they would only be, in the end, behind or ahead depending on the relative number of years at either figure. Again, the difference would be due either to the sheer number of years operating at either figure (say 4 years at +$10K versus 5 years at -$12K) and to the difference between the two figures ($2K). One may as well talk about the price of a $24,000 car being $48,000 because that's the difference between "paying and receiving" $24,000. That $22,000 is a reification being used by the interested party to try to prove a point. But it's not a real number in terms of what any one person has to pay.

[RogerFGay]

That $22,000 is a reification being used by the interested party to try to prove a point. But it's not a real number in terms of what any one person has to pay.

Nope sorry. Can't let you get away with that. Those are real numbers from a real case and the $22,000 difference was pointed out by a New York state appellate court, then repeated by an extremely competent scientist who studied the issue in-depth. Then it was repeated by me -- I'm also an extremely competent scientist who has studied the issue in-depth and I can assure you that I have no problem handling this grade school math issue.

$10,000 - (- $12,000) = $22,000

alternatively:

$12,000 - (- $10,000) = $22,000

[RogerFGay]

Feel free to write a letter to the editor stating that I make good points (embellish this as much as you'd like). His email address is editor@mensnewsdaily.com

[Orangedog]

Respectfully, a lot of fathers are ordered to pay for those items on top of the guideline amount, even though those expenses are usually figured into the guidelines.

On top of that, in many cases the existing guidelines are not applied equally. My ex has an under-graduate degree as opposed to my technical degree. She could make just as much as I do, but chooses to only work 10 to 20 hours a week. And it's not that she has to be home for the kids (one is mine, the other is from her 3rd marriage) because they are both in school. If I decided that I only wanted to work 20 hours a week, the judge would waste no time in ruling that I would be found to be voluntarilly under-employed, and impute a fulltime income to me for guideline purposes. However in her case, her decision to only work part time was not taken into consideration.

Wait...it gets even better. I was the residential and custodial parent for 2 years. During that time, she was not ordered to pay anything....and she didn't pay for anything either. The support laws are a joke, and a rather bad one at that. The judges can interpret the laws as they see fit. Appealing a ruling of a domestic judge is not even an option in the majority of these cases. It is rare for a domestic court judge's decision to be overturned, and costs thousands of dollars to pursue. All a custodial mother has to do is call the support enforcement agency and claim that there has been a change in circumstances to get a review and increase. If this system was anything close to "fair" there would also be a visitation enforcement agency, but we can't have that, now can we?

[riverrunner]

Yes and all those can be put in the price of cost per day. The paying of a flat rate is not fair to one or the other partys. I figure can be worked out as what it costs perday then that amout payed.