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Dozens have been jailed or imprisoned--for anywhere from six months to three years or more--over this type of debt, and have had FELONY convictions tacked upon their records.
With an already tight economy, just try to apply for a job with a felony conviction on your record. More than a few attorneys have remarked: 'A murderer has more rights than one who is behind in his, or her child support.'
More than a few new spouses have watched their spouses have to run back to court and wrestle with financial obligations from a previous failed marriage.
More than a few politicians--a few whom I personally know who help'craft' tough child support enforcement legislation, learned a painful lesson through divorces of their own.
Yet, they did not go back to correct these laws, nor did they go public to support those caught up in the web they helped to create. They merely had their cases quietly transferred to non-political jurisdictions where friendly judges who owed 'the party' a political favor or two, kept their cases quiet, and their support obligations low.
THE SOLUTIONS IN A SEA OF POLITICAL APATHY:
If President Bush, and the Capitol Hill gang want to see collections increase, those who pay support should storm the Hill with letters, cards, and personal testimony before House and Senate Committees about the unfairness of the system.
Here are a few that I can think of, right off the bat:
Make child support payments taxable income to the recipient, and a deduction to the person who pays it. Right now, child support is regarded as 'free money'. It does not have to be reported as income at the federal, state, or local level.
Have local or state prosecutors or district attorneys publicize those parents who have denied visitation rights. Put a few of them on posters, milk cartons, and billboards. Take away their driver's licenses, professional licenses, and passports.
End the 'bounty system' of collections--that is, those states where child support collections are highest, bounties are paid by the federal government to state and local coffers, based upon the level of collections. Your county could be raking in millions while payers are paying, but not getting to see their kids.
Make public those custodial parents who have 'fled' jurisdictions and 'disappeared' with the children, all the while non custodial parents don't have the legal resources to fight to win either custody, or visitation rights enforcement.
Next, it is up to those who are paying to alert the mainstream press to the inequities of the system. There are more than a few journalists, judges, and prosecutors who have been through a divorce, and now stand on the edge of a financial and emotional abyss because their income has been cut to shreds, with no visitation rights in sight!
Lastly, teach the young real responsibility. Young men don't need to learn how to 'carry' a computerized baby, diaper bag or stroller to learn how to be a parent; give them a child support payment book and a tour of the child support courts. Once a young man learns that up to fifty percent of his earning power is going to be gone for a period of eighteen to twenty years--with every child produced out of wedlock--teen pregnancy rates will drop to zero overnight!
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