The System THRIVES on Destroying Families

One of my favorite MRA columnists, Carey Roberts, has written a new piece that basically connects the dots between feminism, the government, and the destructive effects it has had on families and on society by extension.

Specifically, he addresses the horrendous situation that Child Support Programs in each State are firmly entrenched into a system where it thrives on destroying families, and keeping Father's away from their children so that it can continue to receive Federal funding...

From: "Newark Triple-Murder Reveals Need for Fathers,"

The wellspring of the problem can be traced to the advent of no-fault divorce, relaxed sexual mores that gave rise to out-of-wedlock births, and the legacy of Great Society programs that diminished father's roles.

And a recent report by political scientist Stephen Baskerville reveals powerful incentives have now become rooted in the system. [www.ipi.org/ipi/ipihome.nsf?OpenDatabase] These inducements stymie reform and place families at risk.

The problem starts at the top with the Office for Child Support Enforcement, the federal bureaucracy that awards grants to states that propel the gears of their child support enforcement machinery.

Remember we're talking about a squeezing-blood-out-of-a-turnip problem — few low-income dads have the skills or job opportunities to make their child support payments. So revoking their fishing licenses and throwing them in jail becomes an exercise in social do-gooding that is more symbol than substance.

If our child support collection effort was working, the revenues collected from obligated parents should exceed the program's expenses. But they don't. According to a 2003 report from the House Ways and Means Committee, taxpayers actually lost $2.7 billion in 2002.

The OCSE sweetens the deal by dangling juicy incentives that are tied to the level of child support dollars collected. For example in 2002, child support programs brought $640 million to California and $228 million to Ohio.

It's those incentives that have made the system so destructive to families.

If fathers are awarded 50% custody of their children, they owe little or nothing in child support. If no child support dollars are channeling through the system, then the federal money dries up. This creates an inducement for states to keep children away from their fathers as much as possible.

This is how the system is rigged...and it's overall effects on society are PLAIN for all to see.

City Journal commentator Steven Malanga reveals the social pathology that lies behind those murders: "An astonishing 60 percent of the city's kids are growing up without fathers ... Studies have also found that about 70 percent of the long-term prisoners in our jails, those who have committed the most violent crimes, grew up without fathers." [www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-08-09sm2.html]

Yet the madness of family destroying laws continue onward, sucking in more and more men and their innocent children every year into a soul-destroying system that continues to corrupt society.

When will the madness ever end?

And people wonder why I'm an outspoken Libertarian that opposes just about every facet of Government involvement in all the areas of life it does not belong.

Where is it written in the US Constitution that the Federal Government has ANY business being involved in child support?