The Jackson Citizen Patriot, April 19, 2008 published a story called "Hunt for deadbeats is on in Jackson" but it raised some interesting points. First off, I added commentary to the online edition:
The Counties have a good thing going with wasting local, state, and federal taxpayer monies on these programs.
In 2006, the 1.399 BILLION that was collected in child support only around 36 MILLION of that went to actual means tested needy families. Did I forget to mention that around 56 MILLION was undistributed and got to be escheated back into the budget?
It is important to note that 88% of the collections for this program are people that are not means tested and only around 3% of the total collections brought in are for individual families on TANF, meaning signed up and qualified for welfare. The program is bloated and focuses on collection from middle and upper class families who should not be in the program at all. It is taxpayer waste.
For every dollar spent on creating broken homes under the guise of the best interest of children, two more federal dollars come into the state. It is like a giant slot machine that ALWAYS pays out for the state. This is done without actual accounting of the program funds, the actual expenditures by the families, and otherwise just designed to fund a growing bureaucracy based upon a largely emotional argument with adverse results to the public good.
Let's start with taking people out of the program and only providing services to means tested needy families. Let's start by mandating equal custody when there are two fit, willing, and caring parents that just don't want to be together anymore. Just by doing these things, our courts will be freed up to focus on important matters that need their attention, like actual abuse cases, neglect cases, and criminal cases.
Taxpayers should be smarter than this. Be Bold, Be Concerned, Be a Citizen.
But here is where the proof is in the pudding:
More than half the money involved in 2007 that was "owed" to parents was forgiven by them, again demonstrating that many individuals involved in the program don't want to be, or otherwise shouldn't be in the program at taxpayer expense.
Last year, they arrested 244 people and resolved about $259,952 of child-support debt. About $120,000 of that was paid to custodial parents. Mothers or fathers forgave the remaining $139,815.
This year about 2/3 of the money that was owed was also forgiven this year as a result of the local county crackdown.
Since January, Finco and deputies have arrested at least 80 people on random weekend nights, times when parents don't expect they'll be caught. In doing so, they collected $38,731 for parents and their children and resolved another $77,786 when custodial parents forgave debt owed by arrested parents.
Adding more ammunition to the arsenal of reasons that eligibility requirements should be added to the child support enforcement program instead of allowing the State and Counties to artificially increase the participation levels with "all" divorces, child custody, and paternity cases at taxpayer expense.
The Nationwide Blueprint for Title IV-D Reform
