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Society has done a wonderful job at claiming that "child support" is a special kind of "debt." Society has also done a wonderful job in convincing the public that people sentenced for owing debt to prisons nationwide is a good thing. Where is the societal value in placing a 51-year old man in PRISON for years on a debt that is likely going to cause a significant recitivism rate, especially since once this man gets out his employment is likely going to be minimum wage work? Who is really penalized by this? The taxpayers are penalized more than anyone, as well as this man's children.

The child support enforcement program was intended to pay back the federal government for welfare payments they were making to the States to operate their social welfare programs. What is odd, is that the program has morphed into a cumbersome and bloated bureucratic machine that doesn't benefit society, only those that are directly employed by the system. If anything, the programs are encouraging more out of wedlock births, more fights over money, and more dissolutions of marriage because it is now financially beneficial to separate. The government is simply glorifying the bad behaviors of society while punishing the tax payer. Read the below article and tell me where the value to society is.

Man to serve time for back child support

From Wire Reports

A 51-year-old Kosciusko man was sentenced to 10 years in prison with eight suspended and ordered to pay $68,215.87 in back child support. [This man will likely no longer be as marketable when he gets out of prison, therefore reducing his earnings potential and contribution to society dramatically.]

Dennis Kern was sentenced Wednesday, April 30, by Oktibbeha County Circuit Court Judge Lee Howard on charges of refusing to provide for the support and maintenance of his children.

The case was prosecuted by Mississippi's attorney general. [This AG should have been focusing on serious crimes.]

The court ordered Kern to start paying the owed child support payments 60 days after his release from prison. [Unlikely because most employers will not want ex-cons working for them.]

He will be on supervised probation once he's out. [More Fees for the System]

I have been following a fair number of reports where individuals are being caught embezzling from the tax payers, committing fraudulent transfers, and identity theft through the various State Child Support Programs. The programs have grown so quickly that there is insufficient oversight to ensure that the programs help those who have need. Instead the programs are bloated with over-participation and lack of oversight.

The Keizertimes is a publication for the Keizer community, and focuses on Keizer-specific news and events. Recently it reported Former DOJ employee charged with ID theft. It wasn't just identity theft though, it was actual theft from the tax payers and children as well. There has been a tremendous amount of liability associated with identity theft from the State operated and Federally funded child support enforcement programs.

Original Story Published 2-29-08: http://www.keizertimes.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=9130

A theft investigation spanning nearly six months culminated in the arrest of two Keizer residents on Friday, Feb. 22.

The lack of oversight involved in the State Child Support Programs are definitely causing more harm than good when it comes to the potential for identity theft, fraud, and embezzlement.

The state sends out child support payments on a ReliaCard debit system. The investigation began when a woman receiving child support payments said more than $7,000 in child support payments were missing from her account. The victim's card had been mailed to a vacant address in Keizer and had been used to withdraw funds from Salem and Keizer-area automated teller machines.

Don't forget the article Identity Theft: Opt Out Of Family Court Services!

More fraud and embezzlement below!

Fort Bend Woman Guilty in Child Support Fraud Ring

If it isn't the actual child support enforcement officers stealing from the taxpayers, then its more greedy participants aiming to defraud taxpayers, parents, and children of green. The Title IV-D program is
plagued with over participation, fraud, and misrepresentation to the public that money is destined for children, but in reality the money goes into everyone else's pockets but the children's. The Katy Times, serving Katy, Tx and the surrounding suburban communities released the story on June 1, 2007 about a Fort Bend, Indiana Woman being found guilty in another Child Support Fraud Scheme. (Katy Times,
"Fort Bend Woman Guilty in Child Support Fraud Ring," June 1, 2007)

• Child Support Worker Arrested In Bribery Scheme http://www.laryholland.com/serendipity/archives/329-Child-Support-Worker-Arrested-in-Bribery-Scheme.html
• Title IV-D Employee Embezzles Quarter of Million in Child Support Money http://www.laryholland.com/serendipity/archives/311-Title-IV-D-Employee-Embezzles-Quarter-of-Million-in-Child-Support-Enforcement-Money.html

It's about the kids. There is no harsher sanction than to be separated from your children. Children should never be asked who they love more. I'm living out of the bus, I'm going to change the world.

I cry at nights because I know there is nothing that can be done about anything. If you have money people listen to you if you don't have money the court system really sucks.

Justice delayed is justice denied!

Parental Suicide does go up 5 times for fit parents that are removed from their children.

It's destroyed me financially.

They know they can grind you down.

The system isn't built to put the family back together.

You can't stop and just sit down and say, I don't want to play anymore.

The Family Court System is BROKEN. Visit the website: SUPPORT THE MOVIE!
Check out this video: Its about the kids

The Commonwealth State of Virginia has been reported from multiple sources to be suing the Texas-based private child-support collection agency known as SupportKids, Inc. In a political atmosphere where budgets are tight, some states are struggling to maintain their monopolies where they can instead of sharing markets with private firms, saving taxpayers billions nationwide.

The state is suing Supportkids Inc., a private child support collection
company based in Texas, to prevent the company from interfering with
the enforcement of child support in the Commonwealth.

Governor Tim Kaine and State Attorney General Bob McDonnell
announced the lawsuit today (Friday). “Any actions that impede the
Commonwealth’s efforts to lawfully and fairly collect child support
must be addressed,” Governor Kaine said in a news release.₁

The various state child support agencies are funded through a federal grant and incentive program under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act₂. For every three dollars spent by a local state agency for actions like paternity establishment, child support enforcement, and creation of child support orders, the local agency only has to contribute $1.00 while the Federal government pays the State and Local agencies $2.00. This program has been referred to as a "Free For All Welfare Program" where the overwhelming majority of the program are middle and upper-class families fighting over money and the more actions that the local agency takes the more money they receive from the Federal Government.

When private firms refuse to work with the State and Local agencies, despite an individual parent contracting with a private collection firm, there actually exists the potential to cost the State and Local agencies federal funds. With a loss of federal funds, State and Local agencies look for additional ways to bolster membership by requiring nearly every case involving children and spousal support to go through their local Title IV-D offices despite not being means tested for need like other government welfare programs. Essentially the programs reward for a negative result instead of positive results of actually solving a root societal problem.

Families typically
turn to a private, for-profit child-support collection agency when the state
has not been successful in collecting payments.

According to the
Supportkids' Web site, the company has collected more than $360 million since
1991 on behalf of clients, making it the largest private child-support
collection company in the country.

In the news release
about the lawsuit, Kaine said Virginia's Child Support Enforcement agency
collected more than $608 million last year for 484,000 children who are owed
money. ₃

SupportKids, Inc. has claimed to be successful at collections where many State and Local agencies have failed and if a parent contracts with such a collection service they should be allowed to do so instead of requiring a parent to use government and tax payer subsidized programs against their will. Right now the tax payers are paying for the entire expense of child support enforcement and other services at the federal, state, and local level and if participants would rather do business on their own dime instead of the taxpayers dime we should certainly encourage it.

Necessary changes to the national child support program should be implemented to remove the multitude of cases nationwide that do not qualify for current state aid programs and allow parents to conduct business with whatever firm in their judgment will get the desired result. Society cannot force business owners to chose between one or more collection agents, so government shouldn't be able to force parents to work with a government monopoly where there are clear alternatives that do not cost the taxpayer. Child Support orders are regular civil judgments and should be treated accordingly not as a business for our federal, state, and local governments to subsidize bloated bureaucracies.

_{1. WSLS News, February 8, 2008, http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/state_regional/article/virginia_sues_texas_company_over_child_support_enforcement/5283/}

_{2. Social Security, Welfare, and Child Support Enforcement, February 2006, Lary Holland & Jason Bottomley, http://www.laryholland.com/ssacse}

_{3. The Virginian-Pilot, February 9, 2008, http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/va-sues-texas-collection-agency-over-child-support-payments}

Political unrest continues in Delaware and other states regarding the tyrannical and systematical exclusion of one parent from children's lives in lieu of steep financial gains by both special interests and government.
(Original Publication: Delaware Online: Letters to Editor: January 26, 2008)