TO
EDITOR/STAFF WRITER: (Released Statewide)
RE: Why Parenting Time Motions
Fail and Child Support Motions Succeed.
After a Friend of the Court Citizen
Advisory Committee meeting an attorney
indicated that it seemed that their
parenting time motions seem to fail
more frequently than child support
motions succeed. This was a brilliant
observation and I wanted to take a
quick moment and tell you why.
For every three dollars ($3.00) that
your local court spends on Child Support
Enforcement the court receives two
dollars ($2.00) by way of federal
block grant money. Additionally to
make up the difference of the remaining
one dollar balance the local courts
have been able to use what is known
as federal incentive grants from the
federal government, which has made
it possible to “profit” from operating
a “successful” child support enforcement
program. An immense gain by
the state is to be had by operating
a "successful" child support
enforcement program which means that
a child cannot have substantially
equal time with both parents. In order
to maximize federal money the states
create the appearance of an absentee
parent for purposes of the Child Support
Enforcement welfare program. Successful
also means maximizing the number of
participants the state has in its
Child Support Enforcement welfare
program by including the middle-class
at the sole expense of the U.S. Tax
Payer.
See 42 USC 655; “Payment to States”;
See 42 USC 658a; “Incentive payments
to States”;
In a parenting time conflict, there
is disincentive to allow children
to have substantially equal time with
their parents because then the parents
do not fit wholly into the above welfare
program model as being absent. The
more parenting time provided, typically,
child support is reduced or abated.
A reduction in participants is a reduction
in the justification of federal monies
to the state. Normally the reduction
of expenditures is encouraged by government
but in this case the opposite holds
true because there is a profit derived
from the excess influx of funds. Because
of lack of eligibility requirements
there is immense waste in the new
Child Support Enforcement
Bureaucracy.
In 2006 alone, 4.2 BILLION of our
Social Security Fund, nationally,
is being invested into this program
which is a huge disincentive for the
states to allow substantially equal
parenting time with both parents.
The huge mass of money out of your
social security also is the reason
that the State is so eager to incorporate
all the middle-class into their Child
Support Enforcement welfare programs;
that means higher support awards and
an appearance of more need for federal
money now that there is widespread
expanded group participation.
The new welfare abuser is not the
people, but the states who have shaped
their participant numbers to create
the appearance of need for a program
that lacks eligibility requirements.
The reality is that there are many
fit, willing, and competent parents
that are trapped in a welfare system
against their will and they are being
prevented from parenting their children
because the state wants to maximize
their federal funding and make them
look absent.
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