Feds up incentives for state bounty hunters to increase child supportby Donald J. Middleman
As outlined by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala, the fed's new formula would give higher subsidies to states most ruthless in increasing child support collections.
Incentives would be increased, therefore, for the state gang to pin more men with paternity determinations, capriciously to issue and increase child support orders, and to beat up on men unable to pay. In last year's welfare overhaul law, Congress directed HHS to develop the tightened system. Shalala eagerly complied.
Currently, the federal government pays states a percentage of the money they collect plus bonuses if they are cost-effective in collecting more child support with less administrative money.
The new system still rewards cost-effectiveness, but adds four other factors: establishment of paternity, establishment of court orders, amount collected (compared with previous years and compared with how much is owed), and collection of past due child support.
The total amount of money given to states will not change with the new formula. In 1994, $375 million was divided among them.
In 1992, the child support enforcement system collected $8 billion. That rose to $12 billion in 1996; provisions in the welfare law are expected to lead to $24 billion in collections within the next decade, the department said.
Ostensible target of Shalala's collection geniuses are low-income fathers paying no money to welfare mothers. They reason that squeezing the poor dudes for money that most of them don't have will ease the fed's welfare burden. But past experience assures that the eye of the hurricane will chiefly impact the middle and upper income crowd. Sensing opportunity for increases, already bloated upper-income moms will sue for bigger grabs. And the county courts with the incentive of more federal money under the noses are sure to comply.
Clearly, if you are so broke that you can't pay child support, it makes sense to Harrisburg's twisted geniuses to make it impossible for you to earn a living and to assure that you will fall even further behind.
The bill pending (as of the Spring of 1997) in the Pennsylvania State Senate is similar to North Carolina's new law which stinks so badly that even the pro feminist American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held its nose.
Branding the measure irrational and unreasonable, ACLU lawyer Tom Loflin told Durham's Herald Sun, "It offends the Constitution because, arbitrarily and capriciously, it discriminates unfairly against one class of supposed lawbreakers."
"Why do we allow other people to drive who do things we don't like? What about drug sellers? You have to fashion a remedy that fits the offense - not punish people in all kinds of ways that don't make sense."
"What is the nexus between driving safely and supporting one's child? There is none."
Similarly, Deborah Ross, executive director and legal director of the North Carolina ACLU, said "there are serious legal questions" wrapped up in the new law. The law is "constitutionally suspect" even though the appellate courts have ruled that licenses confer a privilege and are not personal property, she added.
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