You will find yourself asking the questions too. Why is the federal government so involved in child support enforcement when the collections associated with Current Assistance Cases total less than one half of what the States are collectively spending on their own contribution to the program? It is definitely time to reign in free for all welfare spending by our federal government.

Visit the Chart

Over participation continues to be a major problem in the nation’s child support enforcement program. I have highlighted important sections regarding participation numbers, collections, and undistributed child support. Net Undistributed Collections appears to make up the equivalent of about 50% of the total collections of means tested needy families. These are nationwide numbers. You will see that between former and never assistance, actual needy families are a super minority of this social welfare program.

Adding eligibility requirements into the nation’s Title IV-D/Child Support Enforcement Program will benefit needy families and will also constitute a significant savings to the taxpayers at both the federal and state levels. Removing affluent feuding families from the program will also benefit children of those divorce and child custody cases, by emphasizing on the parent-child relationship rather than encouraging bickering and fighting over who is going to receive a check and for how much.

Actual Federal Expenditures Nationwide: $5,593,864,242.00 (Billions)

Estimated State Expenditures Nationwide: $1,845,975,199.86 (Billions)

Taxpayer Expense, not including other social programs and costs of incarcerations is over $7 BILLION!

ACTUAL COLLECTIONS FOR MEANS TESTED NEEDY FAMILIES: $946,283,222.00 (Millions)

(please note there is no verification to determine if the money was distributed after collection.)

This program would be better off distributing money out of the budget directly to needy families and just get rid of the employees behind the Child Support Enforcement Agency. With Net Undistributed Collections totaling nearly 50% of the amount collected for needy families, one has to wonder how many needy families are indeed being helped by the program. There appears to be no need for federal government involvement, since the amount distributed to needy families is about HALF of what the states are spending to keep their portion of the program going.

Taxpayers again should be asking for the resignation of more government employees in an effort to save the State of Montana and Federal Taxpayers millions. Why? Because of the simple fact that around a dozen blogs and media outlet services that I reviewed over the past few days are discussing the fact that Montana DHS employees within the Child Support Enforcement Office are complaining that their brand new computers didn't have the same games on them as other departments. First the government creates entitlement programs that people should not receive in the first place, like the child support enforcement program that has severe overparticipation in it, but then the government employees themselves would rather sit around and play games and bilk the federal, state, and local taxpayers out of millions believing they too are entitled to something for free from the taxpayers. Even if these 3000 employees played one of the games for just one hour per week that is 3000 HOURS times their hourly wage that is lost on the taxpayer dime each week!

For those of you not aware, for every dollar that the State of Montana puts out in guise of "Child Support Enforcement and Paternity Establishment" they receive two more federal dollars. Naturally that means the state of Montana likely has 66% more money than it knows what to do with and likely has 66% too many employees if they think they can sit around and play solitaire and minesweep all day long. Their actions also may violate federal law and should be investigated for misappropriation of Title IV-D monies under both the Grants and Incentive payment programs. (Title IV-D of the Social Security Act)

Just a Sample of the Titles of Articles Talking About Montana's Oversized Government Bureaucracy:

Games on state computers stirs flap
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON of the Missoulian State Bureau

Montana's Government Employees Complain Over Lack of Games

Computer policies — Game over State official's decision on computer games should serve as an example for all The Capital-Journal Editorial Board

Montana Public Health Department Loses Games

Andy Chalk posted on 31 Mar 2008 1:31 pm

No time for solitaire in Montana By
Times Wires Published Monday, March 31, 2008 10:10 PM

In 2006, according to the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement Preliminary Report, Montana blew $13,817,422₁ in administrative expenditures of federal and state tax money for their fledgling child support and paternity establishment program. This should be a definite wake-up call to Montana residents and any taxpayer that these government programs are really free-for-all welfare programs designed to benefit bureaucratic growth. When you hear the "best interests of the child" understand that you are being lied to.

_1. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/pubs/2007/preliminary_report/table_7.html

Thanks Robin Steele (Woman of Steele) for the additional coverage on the issues in Maryland. I also enjoyed and agreed with a statement that she recently made about the "Men's Rights Movement."

As those who actually read my
words before calling for my violent, agonizing death know, I believe
there is a serious imbalance in the family court system that puts men
at a disadvantage, an imbalance that could be corrected if this MRM
could graduate from the 5th grade.

I don't normally give my self a title of Men's Rights Activist or Father's Rights Activist. It seems to be something that others assign to me because of my complaints overcasting the family court system in general. I tend to shift more towards taxpayer issues, government intrusion and state powers issues, and equality issues. Limiting special interest involvement in government to prevent continuous teeter-totter like power struggles. The same power struggles that show themselves in the family court system, exist in government policy. Both are tumultuous and competitive power struggles.

Now there are a couple of points that I want to make with regard to what is happening in Frederick, Maryland. I actually met with criminal law attorneys and the main issue
with the local Frederick Court system is the amount of death that has
occurred in the past 6 months here. It is simply too many families that
have turned to drastic violence as a "way out" of the family court
system.

Judge Dwyer just happens to head up the community's
court system where the latest tragedies have happened. There is no evidence that he is personally or directly
responsible for those violent outcomes. We need to focus on positive
outcomes with these families that are pitted against each other instead of the current adversarial system
that is destroying the community and society in general. Pitting parent
against parent has disastrous consequences. We need to get the
attention of legislators and judicial officers to discuss the critical
nature of our family court system.

I hope people encourage positive results through some political pressures,
which hopefully draw people to the table to talk about the disastrous
effects of family court. In a few hours I think I demonstrated that I would personally be able to unseat a single position of power in a very short amount of time. However, the issues in Federick County, Maryland is a greater problem than just one judge
or even one person. The issues are a problem associated with how the system works,
not with the employees that are carrying out their day to day duties. The individuals carrying out the duties have the ability to help reshape the system from financially motivated with negative outcomes to results based with positive outcomes.

Title IV-D (Child Support Enforcement Program Exposed as Failure)

Government Welfare Program Misses the Target and Leaves the Nation's Poor in the Dark. Program serves the greedy not the needy.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007
8:50:00 PM MDT
Feeling Angry

JACK EHRLICH

STATE VIEW

Duluth News Tribune

Friday May 11, 2007

 

A bill in the Minnesota Legislature to increase state funding for child support collection, on the surface, looks reasonable. Proponents argue in favor of reinstating funds for child support enforcement that were cut at the federal level to help reduce the federal deficit. They argue Minnesota taxpayers should now pick up the tab.

 

As so often seen, proponents use the imagery of a poor mom needing her child support check. While this may be effective public relations, it does not reflect the realities of a program that has gone astray of its original mission, which was supporting needy families on welfare.

 

Congress intended the program, called Title IV-D, to only be available for those on welfare and those at risk of falling on welfare, and only in cases where the father was found guilty of abandoning his children to public assistance. This program is costing much in Minnesota because citizens and judges have been led to believe everyone who goes through a divorce or paternity action with kids must be in Title IV-D. As a result, more than 60 percent of the people in the program don't belong. This welfare-service program has no eligibility standards and no means of testing and is thus fiscally irresponsible, unnecessary, and potentially harmful to families.

 

I know of a woman, a partner in a major Minneapolis law firm who makes more than $250,000 a year, who uses the child support enforcement program to collect $1,000 per month in child support from her unemployed ex-husband. He can only afford to feed the children macaroni and cheese when he has them. Is this how we want tax dollars employed?

 

Minnesota's child support program can be harmful to the well-being of children and contributes to gender polarity. An estimated 80 percent of child-support employees are women supporting the agency bias. When fit, loving fathers who have remained involved with their children simply cannot afford exorbitant child support payments, the child support enforcement agency wrecks their credit ratings, suspends their drivers' licenses, and has them arrested. When they lose their job, judges often impute income and threaten fathers with jail even if they can't afford to pay. Then, with a bad credit rating, a suspended drivers' license, and an arrest record, the dads can no longer find work because nobody wants to hire a deadbeat.  The system creates deadbeats out of fit, loving fathers.

 

In February 2006 the Minnesota Legislative Auditor's Office wrote in its Child Support Audit Report that "Minnesota's program has the second-highest spending level in the country" and that "Minnesota has the second-most child support staff in the country."

 

Additionally, the state auditor was instructed to report about the ongoing issue of due process and whether custodial parents, non-custodial parents and children were being treated fairly. The completed report didn't provide any findings about ongoing due process and fair treatment. Under the direction of the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the Title IV-D agency, the legislative auditor's office ignored its duty to study this issue.

 

Contrary to Minnesota's Legislative Audit Report, local county child support workers across Minnesota are making inaccurate statements and lobbying to get more tax dollars. They are trying to claim Minnesota's child support program is well-managed and cost-effective when, in fact, it is a waste of money and can be harmful to families and children.

 

The parents of Minnesota have been asking year after year for legislative reform that recognizes the importance of fathers' involvement with their children. Said another way, Minnesota's child-support program has been broken for many years, and to increase any funding now is not the answer.

 

During a divorce, fit and loving parents who have done nothing wrong face the removal of their children based on the opinion of a custody evaluator whose decision is almost always accepted by the courts. There's no trial by jury in family courts. Criminals get more rights and a higher burden of proof than fit, loving parents do when faced with separation from their children.

 

Ask family court judges how many times they've ordered a father arrested for non-payment of court-ordered child support compared to how many times they've had a mother arrested for failure to provide court-ordered parenting time to a father. The answer clearly will reveal what the system of family law considers important.

 

Divorce is extremely hard on children. They need the love and caring of both parents. I encourage the Legislature to implement programs designed to keep both parents equally involved and equally responsible for providing for their children.

Jack Ehrlich is a member of the Roseville, Minn.-based Center for Parental Responsibility, which advocates for the rights of non-custodial parents

For more information on the Child Support Program (Title IV-D, Child Support Enforcement) you can visit the Nationwide Blueprint for Title IV-D Reform at http://www.nationwideblueprint.com.

Minister Ronald Smith, President of Children Need Both Parents, Inc., tells us why it's profitable for the States to take kids away from their parents.

Speaking at the Des Moines, Iowa Rally for Equal Parenting, Minister Ron Smith explains "What is the Beast?"

Minister Ronald Smith. Children Need Both Parents, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, founded and incorporated in 1993. They are a FAMILY organization who advocate the rights of FAMILY and it's members. Their goals include counseling to both parents, supervision of visitation which will allow parents to go on escorted outings with their children as opposed to visitation taking place in a designated room and workplace support.

As Dr. Stephen Baskerville, President of the ACFC, says, "Crooked Courts Are Nothing New to the United States" with this short clip pertaining to the Nation's Family Courts and captured from his speech at the Des Moines, Iowa Rally for Shared Parenting on April 21, 2007. Stay tuned for more clips each day this week highlighting the various speakers from across the nation that are standing up against dangerous and expanding government policies over the family that has been systematically warped into a twisted revenue generating machine by the states.

Dr. Stephen Baskerville, President of American Coalition of Fathers and Children - Dr. Baskerville joined ACFC in January of 2004 as President of the organization while employed by Howard University as a political science professor. He is internationally known for insightful commentary on the dismal state of family courts in America and the obstacles faced by fathers attempting to remain a significant part of their children's lives after divorce. Among the numerous publications in which Dr. Baskerville's articles and commentary have appeared are the Washington Post, Washington Times, Insight Magazine, Human Events, The Boston Globe, Reason, National Review, and the Journal of Political Science. Additionally, he has appeared on a number of national television shows including Fox New's O'Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Court TV.