Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D. Welfare and the “Road to Serfdom”

Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D.
Welfare and the “Road to Serfdom”

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/07/03/...fdom%E2%80%9D/

July 3, 2007 at 8:53 am · Filed under CounterPulse, NewsLog, Vox Populi

As conservatives congratulate themselves on ten years of welfare reform,
they need to start looking at the larger picture and all that was left
undone. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996 (PRWORA) addressed only one program in the welfare behemoth,
Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The myriad other programs that
constitute the welfare state remain untouched. Figures recently reported
by the National Center for Health Statistics showing out-of-wedlock
births at a record high confirm that, in social terms, we have barely
scratched the surface.

Moreover, it is not called the welfare “state” for nothing. For
unnoticed by reformers has been a startling development that is far more
serious than even the devastating economic effects. This is the quiet
metamorphosis of welfare from a simple system of public assistance into
nothing less than a miniature penal apparatus, replete with its own
system of courts, prosecutors, police, and jails: juvenile and “family”
courts, “matrimonial” lawyers, child protective services, domestic
violence units, child support enforcement agents, and more. This
kafkaesque machinery operates by its own rules, largely outside the
constitutional order, and represents the fulfillment of Friedrich von
Hayek’s prophecy that socialism would eventually take us down a “road to
serfdom.”

The first step in the mission creep transforming public assistance into
bureaucratic tyranny was the extension of welfare operations beyond the
needy. Having shut the front door to welfare abuse among low-income
recipients, reformers have left the back door wide open, with
welfare-originated programs quietly expanded to serve the middle class.

The prime example is child support enforcement, which grew directly out
of welfare. Despite sanctimonious rhetoric about being “for the
children,” the original aim was not to provide for children but to
recover welfare costs; no other constitutional justification exists for
this federal plainclothes police force. The program was begun
exclusively for families on welfare and was to be applied to willfully
absent parents who had abandoned their parental responsibilities to
their children, leaving them dependent on public assistance to satisfy
basic needs.

During the 1980s and 1990s – with no public debate, justification, or
explanation – federal enforcement machinery conceived and created to
address the minority of children in poverty was expanded (under
bureaucratic and feminist pressure) to cover During the 1980s and 1990s
– with no public debate, justification, or explanation – federal
enforcement machinery conceived and created to address the minority of
children in poverty was expanded (under bureaucratic and feminist
pressure) to cover all child support cases, including the vast majority
not receiving welfare. Unlike Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and
virtually every other welfare program, child support enforcement is not
means tested; indeed, there are no limitations or eligibility
requirements at all.

This vastly expanded the size of the program and continues to do so by
bringing in millions of middle-class divorce cases, for which the system
was never intended. Unlike the welfare-related cases, where it is almost
impossible to collect from impecunious young inner-city fathers, the
divorced fathers have deeper pockets to mine. By padding their roles
with millions of middle-class cases, states found they could collect a
huge windfall of federal incentive payments at taxpayers’ expense. As
Lary Holland and Jason Bottomley write:

The federal guidelines wanted the states to function as a
collection agency…from parents who had willfully abandoned their
parental responsibilities to their children. The result, however, was
different from the intent and has caused the state welfare programs…to
collect from willing parents that would ordinarily provide a loving
environment for their children absent a court order limiting their
involvement. Despite the original intent of the IV-D welfare program, it
now provides an incentive for the states to use their courts to produce
forcibly absent parents in order to increase the states' IV-D welfare
caseload.1

The non-welfare cases now dwarf the welfare cases. Recent figures show
that welfare cases, consisting mostly of unmarried parents, account for
17% of all child support cases, and the proportion is shrinking. The
remaining 83% of non-welfare cases consist largely of previously married
fathers who are usually divorced involuntarily and who generally can be
counted on to pay. These non-welfare cases currently account for 92% of
the money collected.2

Promoted as a program that would reduce government spending, federal
child support enforcement has incurred a continuously increasing
deficit. "The overall financial impact of the child support program on
taxpayers is negative," the House Ways and Means Committee reports.
Taxpayers lost $2.7 billion in 2002.3

This money does not vanish. It ends up in state coffers, for whom it
constitutes a lucrative source of revenue. “Most States make a profit on
their child support program,” according to Ways and Means, which notes
that “States are free to spend this profit in any manner the State sees
fit.”4 Federal taxpayers subsidize state government operations through
child support, and every fatherless child is an additional source of
revenue for state governments.

In addition to penalties and interest on arrearages, states profit
through incentive payments based on the amount collected, as well as
receiving 66% of operating costs and 90% of computer costs.5 (When two
states collaborate, both states qualify for the incentive payment as if
each state had collected 100% of the money.) Federal outlays of almost
$3.5 billion in 2002 allowed Ohio to collect $228 million and California
to collect over $640 million.6 “There is a $200 million per year profit
motive driving this system” in Michigan alone, attorney Michael Tindall
points out. “It dances at the string of federal money.” 7

To collect these funds states must channel child support payments
through their criminal enforcement machinery, criminalizing divorced
parents and allowing the government to claim its perennial crackdowns
are increasing collections despite the federal program operating at a
consistent loss. In January 2000, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala announced
that “the federal and state child support enforcement program broke new
records in nationwide collections in fiscal year 1999, reaching $15.5
billion, nearly doubling the amount collected in 1992.” 8 Yet these
figures are not what they appear.

In simple accounting terms, the General Accounting Office (GAO), which
accepts at face value all the official HHS assumptions and data for what
is “legally owed but unpaid,” found that as a percentage of what it
claims is owed, child support collections actually decreased during this
period. “In fiscal year 1996, collections represented 21% of the total
amount due but dropped to 17% of the total due in fiscal year 2000,”
writes GAO. “As a result, the amount owed at the end of the period is
greater than the amount owed at the beginning of the period.” 9

Yet there is a more fundamental and much more consequential sense in
which HHS’s claims of success are smoke-and-mirrors.

The ambiguity is “collections.” When we hear of collections through
enforcement agencies we assume it involves arrearages or targets those
who do not otherwise pay and whose compliance must be “enforced.” Yet in
1992 most child support was still being paid directly from one parent to
the other, without accounting by the state. Criminal enforcement methods
were limited mostly to the low-income welfare cases for which it was
originally created. Increasingly since then, however, all child support
payments – including current ones – have been routed through criminal
enforcement programs by automatic wage withholding and other coercive
measures which presume criminality. Low-income welfare-related cases
(where collection is difficult) have remained steady, while non-welfare
cases (where compliance is high) continue to increase.10 The “increase”
in collections was achieved not by collecting the alleged arrearages
built up by poor fathers already in the criminal collection system but
by bringing more employed middle-class fathers, who faithfully pay, into
it.11

Federal auditors have pointed out that federal child support enforcement
has been diverted from its original purpose of serving a welfare
constituency to serve as a collection agency for the affluent, with
“about 45% reported incomes exceeding 200% of the poverty level and 27%
reported incomes exceeding 300%”: “The rate at which child support
services are being subsidized appear inappropriate for a population that
Congress may not have originally envisioned serving.”12 Federal
taxpayers are funding government collection machinery comprising some
100 public services – including wage-withholding, caseworkers, help desk
workers, county attorneys, monthly invoicing, tracking debits and
credits, asset seizure, free court costs, and a plethora of collection
and enforcement services – not for public welfare cases but for what are
supposed to be private civil divorce cases, where private remedies are
available.13

One enforcement agency director openly acknowledged that the Clinton
administration was twisting what had originally been a welfare-designed
system to an entitlement serving the affluent in order to encourage
profiteering by state governments. Testifying before Congress, Leslie
Frye, Chief of California’s Office of Child Support, acknowledged that
the administration moved “far beyond the Congressional intent” in
developing an incentive system that “in fact encourages states to
recruit middle-class families, never dependent on public assistance and
never likely to be so, into their programs in order to maximize federal
child support incentives.” Concerned that California could lose out
under the new formula, Frye lays out the incentive structure with
startling candor:

*
…the proposal also changes the way collections are counted
for incentive purposes in a manner that is contrary to the principles
underlying the PRWORA and that will lead to financial pressures on
states to expand their Child Support Enforcement Programs to encompass
all cases in the state, including those families who have never had to
interact with government in order to pay or receive child support.
Indeed, those states which already have near-universal government
programs for child support will receive huge windfalls of incentives
under the proposal, while states which historically concentrated on poor
and near-poor families will lose federal incentive revenue, compared to
the current system.

In other words, the administration was stretching congressional intent
(and already questionable constitutional authority) to allow
profiteering by states. The changes pressured states to expand their
programs: “By recruiting ‘never welfare’ families into the IV-D program,
we too could benefit from earning incentives on collections for middle
class families, which generally are easier to make and higher than
collections for poor families,” Frye pointed out. “From a public policy
point of view, however, we think this is wrong. We believe that Congress
did not contemplate…creating a universal Child Support Enforcement
Program.”14 It is difficult not to conclude that the policy changes had
little to do with improving the efficiency of collections, since
collection could not and did not improve; indeed, as Frye points out,
states that worked to improve their welfare collections, no matter how
effectively, could not help but lose in the competition with states that
simply increased their collection accounts by bringing in more affluent
payers: “Mixing the issue of removing the limit on ‘never welfare’
collections with the performance-based incentive system skews the
results so that some states, notably those with near-universal child
support programs, would receive more incentives for poorer performance,
while states with greater proportions of welfare or former welfare
families in their caseloads may not ever be able to earn incentives at
the current rate, no matter how well they perform.” The purpose of the
changes, as Frye suggests, is simply to expand the size of the federal
machinery far beyond what Congress intended.



At least three serious adverse results proceed from this transformation
of the welfare system:

* Cost to taxpayers
* Subsidy on family breakup and fatherless children
* Criminalization of parents

Cost to Taxpayers

As noted, child support enforcement was originally justified and
federalized to save taxpayers’ money by recovering welfare costs. Yet it
has incurred a steadily increasing deficit, amounting to $2.7 billion in
2002. “Even amidst cutbacks by the federal government for entitlement
block grants and restrictions on the use federal incentive dollars as
matching funds, the states’ standing remains to gain billions in funding
by including more and more of the middle-class in their welfare
programs.” 15

Cost to the Taxpayer of the Child Support Enforcement Program

Yet this is only the surface, ignoring indirect administrative and other
costs. Arguably this abuse may be costing taxpayers (federal, state, and
local) tens of billions of dollars annually. Assistant HHS Secretary
Wade Horn argues that most of the $47 billion spending in his department
is necessitated by broken homes and fatherless children.16 Further,
given the social costs Dr. Horn and others have demonstrated to be
connected with fatherless homes – including crime, truancy, drug abuse,
unwed teen pregnancy, and more – it is reasonable to see tens of
billions of dollars expended in law enforcement and education programs
as among the costs. Most strikingly, the law enforcement and criminal
justice systems are diverted from their original purpose of protecting
society from violent criminals to criminalizing non-violent parents and
keeping them apart from their children.

Subsidy on Family Breakup and Fatherless Homes

Child support is usually justified as providing for fatherless children.
Yet there are indications that it serves as a taxpayer-funded subsidy on
such children, providing an incentive for both mothers and states to
remove more children from their fathers. How welfare has exercised this
effect on low-income communities has been well known for decades. Child
support creates a similar same effect on the middle class.

Because of IV-D funding, states must designate an active, present parent
as "absent," even when both parents are fit, willing, and able to care
for their children. These incentives drive courts to rule that a child’s
“best interest” is to have limited contact with one parent in order to
conform to the Title IV-D model of custodial and non-custodial instead
of two custodial parents.

Further, child support creates an economic incentive for mothers (who
file most divorces) to break up their families. Robert Willis calculates
that child support levels exceeding the cost of raising children creates
“an incentive for divorce by the custodial mother.” His analysis
indicates that only between one-fifth and one-third of child support
payments are actually used for the children; the rest is profit for the
custodial parent. “We believe that this recent entitlement,” write two
other scholars, “…has led to the destruction of families by creating
financial incentives to divorce [and] the prevention of families by
creating financial incentives not to marry upon conceiving of a
child.”17 This simply extends well-established findings that increased
welfare payments result in increased divorce.18 In this case, however, a
dimension of law enforcement is added, which becomes effectively a
system of federal divorce enforcement. " Enforcement…is the critical
variable in the choice dilemma because it represents a greater surety in
the assessment of the probability of attaining rewards," write Folse and
Varela-Alvarez. "Strong enforcement, while it is an agreed upon societal
goal to protect children, may, in fact, lead to class-based micro-level
decisions that lead to the unintended consequence of increasing the
likelihood of divorce."19 In other words, a mother can escape the
uncertainties, vicissitudes, and compromises inherent to life shared
with a working husband by divorcing, whereupon she acquires the police
as a private collection agency who will force him, at the point of a gun
if necessary, to pay her the family income that she then controls alone.
At a time when the government is creating new federal programs
ostensibly to strengthen marriage, it is operating a program that is
working directly contrary to that aim. Bryce Christensen points to
“evidence of the linkage between aggressive child-support policies and
the erosion of wedlock.” “Because the politicians who have framed such
[child support] policies have done nothing to reinforce the social ideal
of keeping children in intact families," he explains, "they have –
however unintentionally – actually reduced the likelihood that a growing
number of children will enjoy the tremendous economic, social, and
psychological benefits which the realization of that ideal can bring.”20

This has created an administrative regime where child support is no
longer primarily a system of requiring men to take responsibility for
the offspring they have sired and then abandoned, as the public has been
led to believe; overwhelmingly child support is now a system whereby “a
father is forced to finance the filching of his own children.”21 “By
allowing a faithless wife to keep her children and a sizable portion of
her former spouse’s income,” writes Christensen, “current child-support
laws have combined with no-fault jurisprudence to convert wedlock into
snare for many guiltless men.” 22

Criminalization of Parents

To collect federal incentive payments, states must channel all child
support payments through their criminal enforcement machinery – not just
delinquent payments but current payments, thus subjecting law-abiding
citizens to criminal enforcement measures. Private domestic relations
matters are being unnecessarily criminalized even when there is no
support problem and the non-custodial parent pays consistently. State
agencies place all divorced people in the criminal machinery regardless
of need or circumstance, because the more clients in the program, the
more federal funding the agency receives.

Though most of these fathers were actively involved in raising their
children – indeed, they often clamor for more time with them – these
fathers had to be designated as “absent” in order to fit into the
welfare model, with the unstated stigma that they had “abandoned” their
children when clearly they had done no such thing.

The federal funding also supplies an added incentive both to make
guidelines as onerous as possible and to squeeze every dollar from every
parent available (as well as to turn as many parents as possible into
obligors by providing financial incentives for mothers to divorce).
“From 1989 to 1998,” writes Georgia assistant district attorney William
Akins, “the federal government provided welfare and collection incentive
funds to the states based on the gross amount of the total child support
payments recovered from non-custodial parents, thus creating a
corresponding incentive to establish support obligations as high as
possible without regard to appropriateness of amount.”23 This has led to
what Robert Seidenberg describes as “a windfall of income for
middle-class and upper-middle-class divorced women.”24 Thus the
impossible burdens that plunder and criminalize otherwise law-abiding
parents and the heavy-handed criminal enforcement measures against
plainly innocent people that are now too becoming conspicuous to ignore.

Amid the near-hysteria that has been generated on the subject of unpaid
child support and “deadbeat dads,” the fact remains that no such problem
has ever been demonstrated. While it is obligatory, when offering the
mildest criticism of the child support system, to state that "some"
fathers no doubt do fail to provide for their children, there is simply
no scientific evidence that there is or ever has been a widespread
problem of fathers abandoning their children and not paying child
support. No government or academic study has ever documented such a
problem. Prior to the creation of the federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement (OCSE) and throughout its 31-year history, no study has ever
been conducted on the reason for its existence. Indeed, several
federally funded studies have come to the conclusion that no such
problem exists, and a full-scale government-sponsored study was
cancelled by OCSE when an earlier pilot study threatened to undermine
the justification for the agency’s existence by demonstrating that
nonpayment of child support was not a serious problem.25

Further, our awareness of this alleged problem has come entirely from
government sources. No public outcry ever preceded the creation of
enforcement machinery; nor has any public discussion ever been held in
the media. In fact, no public perception of such a problem even existed
until public officials began saying it did.

In light of the facts above, it is difficult to escape the conclusion
that the public has been seriously misled by a kind of optical illusion.
What we have been told is an epidemic of irresponsible fathers is in
reality a serious abuse of power by the government.

Footnotes

1.Lary Holland and Jason Bottomley, “How Federal Welfare Funding Drives
Judicial Discretion in Child-Custody Determinations and Domestic
Relations Matters,” North Country Gazette, 28 February 2006
(http://www.northcountrygazette.org/a...dCustody.html).

2. Child Support Enforcement (CSE) FY 2002 Preliminary Data Report, 29
April 2003
(http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/...m_datareport/),
figures 1 and 2.

3. 2003 Green Book, House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee,
WMCP: 108-6,section 8, p. 8-69 and table 8-5
(http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/.../Section8.pdf).

4. 1998 Green Book, House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee
Print, WMCP:105-7, U.S. Government Printing Office Online via GPO
Access, section 8: Child Support Enforcement Program
(http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-...05_green_book;

5. Report to the House Of Representatives Committee on Ways And Means
and the Senate Committee on Finance: Child Support Enforcement Incentive
Funding (Washington, DC: Department of Health and Human Services,
February 1997).

6. 2003 Green Book, table 8-4.

7. C. Jesse Green, interview with Michael E. Tindall, Michigan Lawyers
Weekly (http://www.michiganlawyersweekly.com...0/tindall.htm; no
date, accessed 1 May 2002).

8. HHS press release, 27 January 2000.

9. Child Support Enforcement: Clear Guidance Would Help Ensure Proper
Access to Information and Use of Wage Withholding by Private Firms
(Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, GAO-02-349, March 2002), p. 7.

10, FY 1998 Preliminary Data Report (Washington: Office of Child Support
Enforcement, May 1999), figure 2, p. 35; Child Support Enforcement:
Effects of Declining Welfare Caseloads Are Beginning to Emerge
(Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, GAO/HEHS-99-105, 1999), pp. 7-8.

11. At the same time as the Clinton administration was touting its
success, the Ways and Means Committee was arriving at a very different
conclusion. “In 1978, less than one-fourth of child support payments
were collected through the IV-D [welfare] program. This percentage,
however, has increased every year since 1978. By 1993, more than
two-thirds (67%) of all child support payments were made through the
IV-D program. The implication of this trend is that the IV-D program may
be recruiting more and more cases from the private sector, bringing them
into the public sector, providing them with subsidized services (or
substituting Federal spending for State spending), but not greatly
improving child support collections. Whatever the explanation, it seems
that improved effectiveness of the IV-D program has not led to
significant improvement of the nation's child support performance.” 1998
Green Book, section 8.

12. Jane L. Ross, Child Support Enforcement: Opportunity to Reduce
Federal and State Costs (Washington, DC: General Accounting Office,
Report # GAO/T-HEHS-95-181), 13 June 1995, pp. 5-6.

13.Molly Olson, “Title IV-D: Child Support Collection and Enforcement,
Welfare Service Program,” (Roseville, Minnesota: Center for Parental
Responsibility, March 2006).

14. “Statement of Leslie L. Frye, Chief, Office of Child Support
California Department of Social Services

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House
Committee on Ways and Means,

Hearing on the Administration's Child Support Enforcement Incentive
Payment Proposal, March 20, 1997”
(http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.../3-20frye.htm),
pp. 1-2.

15. Holland and Bottomley, “How Federal Welfare Funding Drives Judicial
Discretion.”

16. “Wedded to Marriage,” National Review Online, 9 August 2005
(http://www.nationalreview.com/commen...508090806.asp).

17.Robert J. Willis, “Child Support and the Problem of Economic
Incentives,” p. 42, and Robert A. McNeely and Cynthia A. McNeely,
“Hopelessly Defective: An Examination of the Assumptions Underlying
Current Child Support Guidelines,” p. 170; both in William S. Comanor
(ed.), The Law and Economics of Child Support Payments (Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar, 2004).

18.Saul Hoffman and Greg Duncan, "The Effects of Incomes, Wages, and
AFDC Benefits on Marital Disruption," Journal of Human Resources 30
(1995), pp. 19–41; Lowell Gallaway and Richard Vedder, Poverty, Income
Distribution, the Family and Public Policy (Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office, 1986), pp. 84-89.

19. Kimberly Folse and Hugo Varela-Alvarez, "Long-Run Economic
Consequences of Child Support Enforcement for the Middle Class," Journal
of Socio-Economics, vol. 31, no. 3 (2002), pp. 274, 283, 284.

20. Bryce Christensen, “The Strange Politics of Child Support,” Society,
vol. 39, no. 1 (November-December 2001), pp. 67, 63.

21. Jed H. Abraham, From Courtship to Courtroom: What Divorce Law Is
Doing to Marriage (New York: Bloch, 1999), p. 151.

22. Christensen, “Strange Politics of Child Support,” p. 65 (original
emphasis).

23. William C. Akins, “Why Georgia's Child Support Guidelines Are
Unconstitutional,” Georgia Bar Journal, vol. 6, no. 2 (October 2000),
pp. 9-10.

24. Robert Seidenberg, The Father’s Emergency Guide to Divorce-Custody
Battle (Takoma Park, Maryland: JES, 1997), pp. 107-108; Irwin Garfinkel
and Sarah McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children, A New American
Dilemma (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 24-25.
Christensen also found “windfalls to the custodial parents.” “Strange
Politics of Child Support,” p. 66.

25. S.L. Braver, P.J. Fitzpatrick, and R. Bay, “Adaption of the
Non-Custodial Parents: Patterns over Time,” paper presented at the
conference of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta, Georgia,
1988; F.L. Sonenstein and C.A. Calhoun, “Determinants of Child Support:
A Pilot Survey of Absent Parents,” Contemporary Policy Issues 8 (1990);
Carmen D. Solomon, The Child Support Enforcement Program: Policy and
Practice, Congressional Research Service, 8 December 1989, pp. 1-3.

About the Author

Stephen Baskerville is a fellow at the Howard Center for Family,
Religion, and Society and president of the American Coalition for
Fathers and Children. His book, Taken Into Custody: The War Against
Fathers, Marriage, and the Family will be published in July by
Cumberland House Publishing."






CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.

BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...

On Jul 3, 1:43 pm, fx wrote:
Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D.
Welfare and the "Road to Serfdom"

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/07/03/...%80%9Croad-to-...

July 3, 2007 at 8:53 am · Filed under CounterPulse, NewsLog, Vox Populi

As conservatives congratulate themselves on ten years of welfare reform,
they need to start looking at the larger picture and all that was left
undone. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996 (PRWORA) addressed only one program in the welfare behemoth,
Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The myriad other programs that
constitute the welfare state remain untouched. Figures recently reported
by the National Center for Health Statistics showing out-of-wedlock
births at a record high confirm that, in social terms, we have barely
scratched the surface.

Moreover, it is not called the welfare "state" for nothing. For
unnoticed by reformers has been a startling development that is far more
serious than even the devastating economic effects. This is the quiet
metamorphosis of welfare from a simple system of public assistance into
nothing less than a miniature penal apparatus, replete with its own
system of courts, prosecutors, police, and jails: juvenile and "family"
courts, "matrimonial" lawyers, child protective services, domestic
violence units, child support enforcement agents, and more. This
kafkaesque machinery operates by its own rules, largely outside the
constitutional order, and represents the fulfillment of Friedrich von
Hayek's prophecy that socialism would eventually take us down a "road to
serfdom."

The first step in the mission creep transforming public assistance into
bureaucratic tyranny was the extension of welfare operations beyond the
needy. Having shut the front door to welfare abuse among low-income
recipients, reformers have left the back door wide open, with
welfare-originated programs quietly expanded to serve the middle class.

The prime example is child support enforcement, which grew directly out
of welfare. Despite sanctimonious rhetoric about being "for the
children," the original aim was not to provide for children but to
recover welfare costs; no other constitutional justification exists for
this federal plainclothes police force. The program was begun
exclusively for families on welfare and was to be applied to willfully
absent parents who had abandoned their parental responsibilities to
their children, leaving them dependent on public assistance to satisfy
basic needs.

During the 1980s and 1990s - with no public debate, justification, or
explanation - federal enforcement machinery conceived and created to
address the minority of children in poverty was expanded (under
bureaucratic and feminist pressure) to cover During the 1980s and 1990s
- with no public debate, justification, or explanation - federal
enforcement machinery conceived and created to address the minority of
children in poverty was expanded (under bureaucratic and feminist
pressure) to cover all child support cases, including the vast majority
not receiving welfare. Unlike Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and
virtually every other welfare program, child support enforcement is not
means tested; indeed, there are no limitations or eligibility
requirements at all.

This vastly expanded the size of the program and continues to do so by
bringing in millions of middle-class divorce cases, for which the system
was never intended. Unlike the welfare-related cases, where it is almost
impossible to collect from impecunious young inner-city fathers, the
divorced fathers have deeper pockets to mine. By padding their roles
with millions of middle-class cases, states found they could collect a
huge windfall of federal incentive payments at taxpayers' expense. As
Lary Holland and Jason Bottomley write:

The federal guidelines wanted the states to function as a
collection agency...from parents who had willfully abandoned their
parental responsibilities to their children. The result, however, was
different from the intent and has caused the state welfare programs...to
collect from willing parents that would ordinarily provide a loving
environment for their children absent a court order limiting their
involvement. Despite the original intent of the IV-D welfare program, it
now provides an incentive for the states to use their courts to produce
forcibly absent parents in order to increase the states' IV-D welfare
caseload.1

The non-welfare cases now dwarf the welfare cases. Recent figures show
that welfare cases, consisting mostly of unmarried parents, account for
17% of all child support cases, and the proportion is shrinking. The
remaining 83% of non-welfare cases consist largely of previously married
fathers who are usually divorced involuntarily and who generally can be
counted on to pay. These non-welfare cases currently account for 92% of
the money collected.2

Promoted as a program that would reduce government spending, federal
child support enforcement has incurred a continuously increasing
deficit. "The overall financial impact of the child support program on
taxpayers is negative," the House Ways and Means Committee reports.
Taxpayers lost $2.7 billion in 2002.3

This money does not vanish. It ends up in state coffers, for whom it
constitutes a lucrative source of revenue. "Most States make a profit on
their child support program," according to Ways and Means, which notes
that "States are free to spend this profit in any manner the State sees
fit."4 Federal taxpayers subsidize state government operations through
child support, and every fatherless child is an additional source of
revenue for state governments.

In addition to penalties and interest on arrearages, states profit
through incentive payments based on the amount collected, as well as
receiving 66% of operating costs and 90% of computer costs.5 (When two
states collaborate, both states qualify for the incentive payment as if
each state had collected 100% of the money.) Federal outlays of almost
$3.5 billion in 2002 allowed Ohio to collect $228 million and California
to collect over $640 million.6 "There is a $200 million per year profit
motive driving this system" in Michigan alone, attorney Michael Tindall
points out. "It dances at the string of federal money." 7

To collect these funds states must channel child support payments
through their criminal enforcement machinery, criminalizing divorced
parents and allowing the government to claim its perennial crackdowns
are increasing collections despite the federal program operating at a
consistent loss. In January 2000, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala announced
that "the federal and state child support enforcement program broke new
records in nationwide collections in fiscal year 1999, reaching $15.5
billion, nearly doubling the amount collected in 1992." 8 Yet these
figures are not what they appear.

In simple accounting terms, the General Accounting Office (GAO), which
accepts at face value all the official HHS assumptions and data for what
is "legally owed but unpaid," found that as a percentage of what it
claims is owed, child support collections actually decreased during this
period. "In fiscal year 1996, collections represented 21% of the total
amount due but dropped to 17% of the total due in fiscal year 2000,"
writes GAO. "As a result, the amount owed at the end of the period is
greater than the amount owed at the beginning of the period." 9

Yet there is a more fundamental and much more consequential sense in
which HHS's claims of success are smoke-and-mirrors.

The ambiguity is "collections." When we hear of collections through
enforcement agencies we assume it involves arrearages or targets those
who do not otherwise pay and whose compliance must be "enforced." Yet in
1992 most child support was still being paid directly from one parent to
the other, without accounting by the state. Criminal enforcement methods
were limited mostly to the low-income welfare cases for which it was
originally created. Increasingly since then, however, all child support
payments - including current ones - have been routed through criminal
enforcement programs by automatic wage withholding and other coercive
measures which presume criminality. Low-income welfare-related cases
(where collection is difficult) have remained steady, while non-welfare
cases (where compliance is high) continue to increase.10 The "increase"
in collections was achieved not by collecting the alleged arrearages
built up by poor fathers already in the criminal collection system but
by bringing more employed middle-class fathers, who faithfully pay, into
it.11

Federal auditors have pointed out that federal child support enforcement
has been diverted from its original purpose of serving a welfare
constituency to serve as a collection agency for the affluent, with
"about 45% reported incomes exceeding 200% of the poverty level and 27%
reported incomes exceeding 300%": "The rate at which child support
services are being subsidized appear inappropriate for a population that
Congress may not have originally envisioned serving."12 Federal
taxpayers are funding government collection machinery comprising some
100 public services - including wage-withholding, caseworkers, help desk
workers, county attorneys, monthly invoicing, tracking debits and
credits, asset seizure, free court costs, and a plethora of collection
and enforcement services - not for public welfare cases but for what are
supposed to be private civil divorce cases, where private remedies are
available.13

One enforcement agency director openly acknowledged that the Clinton
administration was twisting what had originally been a welfare-designed
system to an entitlement serving the affluent in order to encourage
profiteering by state governments. Testifying before Congress, Leslie
Frye, Chief of California's Office of Child Support, acknowledged that
the administration moved "far beyond the Congressional intent" in
developing an incentive system that "in fact encourages states to
recruit middle-class families, never dependent on public assistance and
never likely to be so, into their programs in order to maximize federal
child support incentives." Concerned that California could lose out
under the new formula, Frye lays out the incentive structure with
startling candor:

*
...the proposal also changes the way collections are counted
for incentive purposes in a manner that is contrary to the principles
underlying the PRWORA and that will lead to financial pressures on
states to expand their Child Support Enforcement Programs to encompass
all cases in the state, including those families who have never had to
interact with government in order to pay or receive child support.
Indeed, those states which already have near-universal government
programs for child support will receive huge windfalls of incentives
under the proposal, while states which historically concentrated on poor
and near-poor families will lose federal incentive revenue, compared to
the current system.

In other words, the administration was stretching congressional intent
(and already questionable constitutional authority) to allow
profiteering by states. The changes pressured states to expand their
programs: "By recruiting 'never welfare' families into the IV-D program,
we too could benefit from earning incentives on collections for middle
class families, which generally are easier to make and higher than
collections for poor families," Frye pointed out. "From a public policy
point of view, however, we think this is wrong. We believe that Congress
did not contemplate...creating a universal Child Support Enforcement
Program."14 It is difficult not to conclude that the policy changes had
little to do with improving the efficiency of collections, since
collection could not and did not improve; indeed, as Frye points out,
states that worked to improve their welfare collections, no matter how
effectively, could not help but lose in the competition with states that
simply increased their collection accounts by bringing in more affluent
payers: "Mixing the issue of removing the limit on 'never welfare'
collections with the performance-based incentive system skews the
results so that some states, notably those with near-universal child
support programs, would receive more incentives for poorer performance,
while states with greater proportions of welfare or former welfare
families in their caseloads may not ever be able to earn incentives at
the current rate, no matter how well they perform." The purpose of the
changes, as Frye suggests, is simply to expand the size of the federal
machinery far beyond what Congress intended.

At least three serious adverse results proceed from this transformation
of the welfare system:

* Cost to taxpayers
* Subsidy on family breakup and fatherless children
* Criminalization of parents

Cost to Taxpayers

As noted, child support enforcement was originally justified and
federalized to save taxpayers' money by recovering welfare costs. Yet it
has incurred a steadily increasing deficit, amounting to $2.7 billion in
2002. "Even amidst cutbacks by the federal government for entitlement
block grants and restrictions on the use federal incentive dollars as
matching funds, the states' standing remains to gain billions in funding
by including more and more of the middle-class in their welfare
programs." 15

Cost to the Taxpayer of the Child Support Enforcement Program

Yet this is only the surface, ignoring indirect administrative and other
costs. Arguably this abuse may be costing taxpayers (federal, state, and
local) tens of billions of dollars annually. Assistant HHS Secretary
Wade Horn argues that most of the $47 billion spending in his department
is necessitated by broken homes and fatherless children.16 Further,
given the social costs Dr. Horn and others have demonstrated to be
connected with fatherless homes - including crime, truancy, drug abuse,
unwed teen pregnancy, and more - it is reasonable to see tens of
billions of dollars expended in law enforcement and education programs
as among the costs. Most strikingly, the law enforcement and criminal
justice systems are diverted from their original purpose of protecting
society from violent criminals to criminalizing non-violent parents and
keeping them apart from their children.

Subsidy on Family Breakup and Fatherless Homes

Child support is usually justified as providing for fatherless children.
Yet there are indications that it serves as a taxpayer-funded subsidy on
such children, providing an incentive for both mothers and states to
remove more children from their fathers. How welfare has exercised this
effect on low-income communities has been well known for decades. Child
support creates a similar same effect on the middle class.

Because of IV-D funding, states must designate an active, present parent
as "absent," even when both parents are fit, willing, and able to care
for their children. These incentives drive courts to rule that a child's
"best interest" is to have limited contact with one parent in order to
conform to the Title IV-D model of custodial and non-custodial instead
of two custodial parents.

Further, child support creates an economic incentive for mothers (who
file most divorces) to break up their families. Robert Willis calculates
that child support levels exceeding the cost of raising children creates
"an incentive for divorce by the custodial mother." His analysis
indicates that only between one-fifth and one-third of child support
payments are actually used for the children; the rest is profit for the
custodial parent. "We believe that this recent entitlement," write two
other scholars, "...has led to the destruction of families by creating
financial incentives to divorce [and] the prevention of families by
creating financial incentives not to marry upon conceiving of a
child."17 This simply extends well-established findings that increased
welfare payments result in increased divorce.18 In this case, however, a
dimension of law enforcement is added, which becomes effectively a
system of federal divorce enforcement. " Enforcement...is the critical
variable in the choice dilemma because it represents a greater surety in
the assessment of the probability of attaining rewards," write Folse and
Varela-Alvarez. "Strong enforcement, while it is an agreed upon societal
goal to protect children, may, in fact, lead to class-based micro-level
decisions that lead to the unintended consequence of increasing the
likelihood of divorce."19 In other words, a mother can escape the
uncertainties, vicissitudes, and compromises inherent to life shared
with a working husband by divorcing, whereupon she acquires the police
as a private collection agency who will force him, at the point of a gun
if necessary, to pay her the family income that she then controls alone.
At a time when the government is creating new federal programs
ostensibly to strengthen marriage, it is operating a program that is
working directly contrary to that aim. Bryce Christensen points to
"evidence of the linkage between aggressive child-support policies and
the erosion of wedlock." "Because the politicians who have framed such
[child support] policies have done nothing to reinforce the social ideal
of keeping children in intact families," he explains, "they have -
however unintentionally - actually reduced the likelihood that a growing
number of children will enjoy the tremendous economic, social, and
psychological benefits which the realization of that ideal can bring."20

This has created an administrative regime where child support is no
longer primarily a system of requiring men to take responsibility for
the offspring they have sired and then abandoned, as the public has been
led to believe; overwhelmingly child support is now a system whereby "a
father is forced to finance the filching of his own children."21 "By
allowing a faithless wife to keep her children and a sizable portion of
her former spouse's income," writes Christensen, "current child-support
laws have combined with no-fault jurisprudence to convert wedlock into
snare for many guiltless men." 22

Criminalization of Parents

To collect federal incentive payments, states must channel all child
support payments through their criminal enforcement machinery - not just
delinquent payments but current payments, thus subjecting law-abiding
citizens to criminal enforcement measures. Private domestic relations
matters are being unnecessarily criminalized even when there is no
support problem and the non-custodial parent pays consistently. State
agencies place all divorced people in the criminal machinery regardless
of need or circumstance, because the more clients in the program, the
more federal funding the agency receives.

Though most of these fathers were actively involved in raising their
children - indeed, they often clamor for more time with them - these
fathers had to be designated as "absent" in order to fit into the
welfare model, with the unstated stigma that they had "abandoned" their
children when clearly they had done no such thing.

The federal funding also supplies an added incentive both to make
guidelines as onerous as possible and to squeeze every dollar from every
parent available (as well as to turn as many parents as possible into
obligors by providing financial incentives for mothers to divorce).
"From 1989 to 1998," writes Georgia assistant district attorney William
Akins, "the federal government provided welfare and collection incentive
funds to the states based on the gross amount of the total child support
payments recovered from non-custodial parents, thus creating a
corresponding incentive to establish support obligations as high as
possible without regard to appropriateness of amount."23 This has led to
what Robert Seidenberg describes as "a windfall of income for
middle-class and upper-middle-class divorced women."24 Thus the
impossible burdens that plunder and criminalize otherwise law-abiding
parents and the heavy-handed criminal enforcement measures against
plainly innocent people that are now too becoming conspicuous to ignore.

Amid the near-hysteria that has been generated on the subject of unpaid
child support and "deadbeat dads," the fact remains that no such problem
has ever been demonstrated. While it is obligatory, when offering the
mildest criticism of the child support system, to state that "some"
fathers no doubt do fail to provide for their children, there is simply
no scientific evidence that there is or ever has been a widespread
problem of fathers abandoning their children and not paying child
support. No government or academic study has ever documented such a
problem. Prior to the creation of the federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement (OCSE) and throughout its 31-year history, no study has ever
been conducted on the reason for its existence. Indeed, several
federally funded studies have come to the conclusion that no such
problem exists, and a full-scale government-sponsored study was
cancelled by OCSE when an earlier pilot study threatened to undermine
the justification for the agency's existence by demonstrating that
nonpayment of child support was not a serious problem.25

Further, our awareness of this alleged problem has come entirely from
government sources. No public outcry ever preceded the creation of
enforcement machinery; nor has any public discussion ever been held in
the media. In fact, no public perception of such a problem even existed
until public officials began saying it did.

In light of the facts above, it is difficult to escape the conclusion
that the public has been seriously misled by a kind of optical illusion.
What we have been told is an epidemic of irresponsible fathers is in
reality a serious abuse of power by the government.

Footnotes

1.Lary Holland and Jason Bottomley, "How Federal Welfare Funding Drives
Judicial Discretion in Child-Custody Determinations and Domestic
Relations Matters," North Country Gazette, 28 February 2006
(http://www.northcountrygazette.org/a...dCustody.html).

2. Child Support Enforcement (CSE) FY 2002 Preliminary Data Report, 29
April 2003
(http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/...m_datareport/),
figures 1 and 2.

3. 2003 Green Book, House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee,
WMCP: 108-6,section 8, p. 8-69 and table 8-5
(http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/.../Section8.pdf).

4. 1998 Green Book, House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee
Print, WMCP:105-7, U.S. Government Printing Office Online via GPO
Access, section 8: Child Support Enforcement Program
(http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-...ddress=162.140.....

5. Report to the House Of Representatives Committee on Ways And Means
and the Senate Committee on Finance: Child Support Enforcement Incentive
Funding (Washington, DC: Department of Health and Human Services,
February 1997).

6. 2003 Green Book, table 8-4.

7. C. Jesse Green, interview with Michael E. Tindall, Michigan Lawyers
Weekly (http://www.michiganlawyersweekly.com...tindall.htm;no
date, accessed 1 May 2002).

8. HHS press release, 27 January 2000.

9. Child Support Enforcement: Clear Guidance Would Help Ensure Proper
Access to Information and Use of Wage Withholding by Private Firms
(Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, GAO-02-349, March 2002), p. 7.

10, FY 1998 Preliminary Data Report (Washington: Office of Child Support
Enforcement, May 1999), figure 2, p. 35; Child Support Enforcement:
Effects of Declining Welfare Caseloads Are Beginning to Emerge
(Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, GAO/HEHS-99-105, 1999), pp. 7-8.

11. At the same time as the Clinton administration was touting its
success, the Ways and Means Committee was arriving at a very different
conclusion. "In 1978, less than one-fourth of child support payments
were collected through the IV-D [welfare] program. This percentage,
however, has increased every year since 1978. By 1993, more than
two-thirds (67%) of all child support payments were made through the
IV-D program. The implication of this trend is that the IV-D program may
be recruiting more and more cases from the private sector, bringing them
into the public sector, providing them with subsidized services (or
substituting Federal spending for State spending), but not greatly
improving child support collections. Whatever the explanation, it seems
that improved effectiveness of the IV-D program has not led to
significant improvement of the nation's child support performance." 1998
Green Book, section 8.

12. Jane L. Ross, Child Support Enforcement: Opportunity to Reduce
Federal and State Costs (Washington, DC: General Accounting Office,
Report # GAO/T-HEHS-95-181), 13 June 1995, pp. 5-6.

13.Molly Olson, "Title IV-D: Child Support Collection and Enforcement,
Welfare Service Program," (Roseville, Minnesota: Center for Parental
Responsibility, March 2006).

14. "Statement of Leslie L. Frye, Chief, Office of Child Support
California Department of Social Services

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House
Committee on Ways and Means,

Hearing on the Administration's Child Support Enforcement Incentive
Payment Proposal, March 20, 1997"
(http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.../3-20frye.htm),
pp. 1-2.

15. Holland and Bottomley, "How Federal Welfare Funding Drives Judicial
Discretion."

16. "Wedded to Marriage," National Review Online, 9 August 2005
(http://www.nationalreview.com/commen...508090806.asp).

17.Robert J. Willis, "Child Support and the Problem of Economic
Incentives," p. 42, and Robert A. McNeely and Cynthia A. McNeely,
"Hopelessly Defective: An Examination of the Assumptions Underlying
Current Child Support Guidelines," p. 170; both in William S. Comanor
(ed.), The Law and Economics of Child Support Payments (Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar, 2004).

18.Saul Hoffman and Greg Duncan, "The Effects of Incomes, Wages, and
AFDC Benefits on Marital Disruption," Journal of Human Resources 30
(1995), pp. 19-41; Lowell Gallaway and Richard Vedder, Poverty, Income
Distribution, the Family and Public Policy (Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office, 1986), pp. 84-89.

19. Kimberly Folse and Hugo Varela-Alvarez, "Long-Run Economic
Consequences of Child Support Enforcement for the Middle Class," Journal
of Socio-Economics, vol. 31, no. 3 (2002), pp. 274, 283, 284.

20. Bryce Christensen, "The Strange Politics of Child Support," Society,
vol. 39, no. 1 (November-December 2001), pp. 67, 63.

21. Jed H. Abraham, From Courtship to Courtroom: What Divorce Law Is
Doing to Marriage (New York: Bloch, 1999), p. 151.

22. Christensen, "Strange Politics of Child Support," p. 65 (original
emphasis).

23. William C. Akins, "Why Georgia's Child Support Guidelines Are
Unconstitutional," Georgia Bar Journal, vol. 6, no. 2 (October 2000),
pp. 9-10.

24. Robert Seidenberg, The Father's Emergency Guide to Divorce-Custody
Battle (Takoma Park, Maryland: JES, 1997), pp. 107-108; Irwin Garfinkel
and Sarah McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children, A New American
Dilemma (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 24-25.
Christensen also found "windfalls to the custodial parents." "Strange
Politics of Child Support," p. 66.

25. S.L. Braver, P.J. Fitzpatrick, and R. Bay, "Adaption of the
Non-Custodial Parents: Patterns over Time," paper presented at the
conference of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta, Georgia,
1988; F.L. Sonenstein and C.A. Calhoun, "Determinants of Child Support:
A Pilot Survey of Absent Parents," Contemporary Policy Issues 8 (1990);
Carmen D. Solomon, The Child Support Enforcement Program: Policy and
Practice, Congressional Research Service, 8 December 1989, pp. 1-3.

About the Author

Stephen Baskerville is a fellow at the Howard Center for Family,
Religion, and Society and president of the American Coalition for
Fathers and Children. His book, Taken Into Custody: The War Against
Fathers, Marriage, and the Family will be published in July by
Cumberland House Publishing."

CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.

BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...

Kane: Can you explain how this guy is WRONG?
With a minimum of ad hom please?



On Jul 3, 1:43 pm, fx wrote:
Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D.
Welfare and the "Road to Serfdom"

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/07/03/...%80%9Croad-to-...

July 3, 2007 at 8:53 am · Filed under CounterPulse, NewsLog, Vox Populi

As conservatives congratulate themselves on ten years of welfare reform,
they need to start looking at the larger picture and all that was left
undone. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996 (PRWORA) addressed only one program in the welfare behemoth,
Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The myriad other programs that
constitute the welfare state remain untouched. Figures recently reported
by the National Center for Health Statistics showing out-of-wedlock
births at a record high confirm that, in social terms, we have barely
scratched the surface.

Moreover, it is not called the welfare "state" for nothing. For
unnoticed by reformers has been a startling development that is far more
serious than even the devastating economic effects. This is the quiet
metamorphosis of welfare from a simple system of public assistance into
nothing less than a miniature penal apparatus, replete with its own
system of courts, prosecutors, police, and jails: juvenile and "family"
courts, "matrimonial" lawyers, child protective services, domestic
violence units, child support enforcement agents, and more. This
kafkaesque machinery operates by its own rules, largely outside the
constitutional order, and represents the fulfillment of Friedrich von
Hayek's prophecy that socialism would eventually take us down a "road to
serfdom."

The first step in the mission creep transforming public assistance into
bureaucratic tyranny was the extension of welfare operations beyond the
needy. Having shut the front door to welfare abuse among low-income
recipients, reformers have left the back door wide open, with
welfare-originated programs quietly expanded to serve the middle class.

The prime example is child support enforcement, which grew directly out
of welfare. Despite sanctimonious rhetoric about being "for the
children," the original aim was not to provide for children but to
recover welfare costs; no other constitutional justification exists for
this federal plainclothes police force. The program was begun
exclusively for families on welfare and was to be applied to willfully
absent parents who had abandoned their parental responsibilities to
their children, leaving them dependent on public assistance to satisfy
basic needs.

During the 1980s and 1990s - with no public debate, justification, or
explanation - federal enforcement machinery conceived and created to
address the minority of children in poverty was expanded (under
bureaucratic and feminist pressure) to cover During the 1980s and 1990s
- with no public debate, justification, or explanation - federal
enforcement machinery conceived and created to address the minority of
children in poverty was expanded (under bureaucratic and feminist
pressure) to cover all child support cases, including the vast majority
not receiving welfare. Unlike Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and
virtually every other welfare program, child support enforcement is not
means tested; indeed, there are no limitations or eligibility
requirements at all.

This vastly expanded the size of the program and continues to do so by
bringing in millions of middle-class divorce cases, for which the system
was never intended. Unlike the welfare-related cases, where it is almost
impossible to collect from impecunious young inner-city fathers, the
divorced fathers have deeper pockets to mine. By padding their roles
with millions of middle-class cases, states found they could collect a
huge windfall of federal incentive payments at taxpayers' expense. As
Lary Holland and Jason Bottomley write:

The federal guidelines wanted the states to function as a
collection agency...from parents who had willfully abandoned their
parental responsibilities to their children. The result, however, was
different from the intent and has caused the state welfare programs...to
collect from willing parents that would ordinarily provide a loving
environment for their children absent a court order limiting their
involvement. Despite the original intent of the IV-D welfare program, it
now provides an incentive for the states to use their courts to produce
forcibly absent parents in order to increase the states' IV-D welfare
caseload.1

The non-welfare cases now dwarf the welfare cases. Recent figures show
that welfare cases, consisting mostly of unmarried parents, account for
17% of all child support cases, and the proportion is shrinking. The
remaining 83% of non-welfare cases consist largely of previously married
fathers who are usually divorced involuntarily and who generally can be
counted on to pay. These non-welfare cases currently account for 92% of
the money collected.2

Promoted as a program that would reduce government spending, federal
child support enforcement has incurred a continuously increasing
deficit. "The overall financial impact of the child support program on
taxpayers is negative," the House Ways and Means Committee reports.
Taxpayers lost $2.7 billion in 2002.3

This money does not vanish. It ends up in state coffers, for whom it
constitutes a lucrative source of revenue. "Most States make a profit on
their child support program," according to Ways and Means, which notes
that "States are free to spend this profit in any manner the State sees
fit."4 Federal taxpayers subsidize state government operations through
child support, and every fatherless child is an additional source of
revenue for state governments.

In addition to penalties and interest on arrearages, states profit
through incentive payments based on the amount collected, as well as
receiving 66% of operating costs and 90% of computer costs.5 (When two
states collaborate, both states qualify for the incentive payment as if
each state had collected 100% of the money.) Federal outlays of almost
$3.5 billion in 2002 allowed Ohio to collect $228 million and California
to collect over $640 million.6 "There is a $200 million per year profit
motive driving this system" in Michigan alone, attorney Michael Tindall
points out. "It dances at the string of federal money." 7

To collect these funds states must channel child support payments
through their criminal enforcement machinery, criminalizing divorced
parents and allowing the government to claim its perennial crackdowns
are increasing collections despite the federal program operating at a
consistent loss. In January 2000, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala announced
that "the federal and state child support enforcement program broke new
records in nationwide collections in fiscal year 1999, reaching $15.5
billion, nearly doubling the amount collected in 1992." 8 Yet these
figures are not what they appear.

In simple accounting terms, the General Accounting Office (GAO), which
accepts at face value all the official HHS assumptions and data for what
is "legally owed but unpaid," found that as a percentage of what it
claims is owed, child support collections actually decreased during this
period. "In fiscal year 1996, collections represented 21% of the total
amount due but dropped to 17% of the total due in fiscal year 2000,"
writes GAO. "As a result, the amount owed at the end of the period is
greater than the amount owed at the beginning of the period." 9

Yet there is a more fundamental and much more consequential sense in
which HHS's claims of success are smoke-and-mirrors.

The ambiguity is "collections." When we hear of collections through
enforcement agencies we assume it involves arrearages or targets those
who do not otherwise pay and whose compliance must be "enforced." Yet in
1992 most child support was still being paid directly from one parent to
the other, without accounting by the state. Criminal enforcement methods
were limited mostly to the low-income welfare cases for which it was
originally created. Increasingly since then, however, all child support
payments - including current ones - have been routed through criminal
enforcement programs by automatic wage withholding and other coercive
measures which presume criminality. Low-income welfare-related cases
(where collection is difficult) have remained steady, while non-welfare
cases (where compliance is high) continue to increase.10 The "increase"
in collections was achieved not by collecting the alleged arrearages
built up by poor fathers already in the criminal collection system but
by bringing more employed middle-class fathers, who faithfully pay, into
it.11

Federal auditors have pointed out that federal child support enforcement
has been diverted from its original purpose of serving a welfare
constituency to serve as a collection agency for the affluent, with
"about 45% reported incomes exceeding 200% of the poverty level and 27%
reported incomes exceeding 300%": "The rate at which child support
services are being subsidized appear inappropriate for a population that
Congress may not have originally envisioned serving."12 Federal
taxpayers are funding government collection machinery comprising some
100 public services - including wage-withholding, caseworkers, help desk
workers, county attorneys, monthly invoicing, tracking debits and
credits, asset seizure, free court costs, and a plethora of collection
and enforcement services - not for public welfare cases but for what are
supposed to be private civil divorce cases, where private remedies are
available.13

One enforcement agency director openly acknowledged that the Clinton
administration was twisting what had originally been a welfare-designed
system to an entitlement serving the affluent in order to encourage
profiteering by state governments. Testifying before Congress, Leslie
Frye, Chief of California's Office of Child Support, acknowledged that
the administration moved "far beyond the Congressional intent" in
developing an incentive system that "in fact encourages states to
recruit middle-class families, never dependent on public assistance and
never likely to be so, into their programs in order to maximize federal
child support incentives." Concerned that California could lose out
under the new formula, Frye lays out the incentive structure with
startling candor:

*
...the proposal also changes the way collections are counted
for incentive purposes in a manner that is contrary to the principles
underlying the PRWORA and that will lead to financial pressures on
states to expand their Child Support Enforcement Programs to encompass
all cases in the state, including those families who have never had to
interact with government in order to pay or receive child support.
Indeed, those states which already have near-universal government
programs for child support will receive huge windfalls of incentives
under the proposal, while states which historically concentrated on poor
and near-poor families will lose federal incentive revenue, compared to
the current system.

In other words, the administration was stretching congressional intent
(and already questionable constitutional authority) to allow
profiteering by states. The changes pressured states to expand their
programs: "By recruiting 'never welfare' families into the IV-D program,
we too could benefit from earning incentives on collections for middle
class families, which generally are easier to make and higher than
collections for poor families," Frye pointed out. "From a public policy
point of view, however, we think this is wrong. We believe that Congress
did not contemplate...creating a universal Child Support Enforcement
Program."14 It is difficult not to conclude that the policy changes had
little to do with improving the efficiency of collections, since
collection could not and did not improve; indeed, as Frye points out,
states that worked to improve their welfare collections, no matter how
effectively, could not help but lose in the competition with states that
simply increased their collection accounts by bringing in more affluent
payers: "Mixing the issue of removing the limit on 'never welfare'
collections with the performance-based incentive system skews the
results so that some states, notably those with near-universal child
support programs, would receive more incentives for poorer performance,
while states with greater proportions of welfare or former welfare
families in their caseloads may not ever be able to earn incentives at
the current rate, no matter how well they perform." The purpose of the
changes, as Frye suggests, is simply to expand the size of the federal
machinery far beyond what Congress intended.

At least three serious adverse results proceed from this transformation
of the welfare system:

* Cost to taxpayers
* Subsidy on family breakup and fatherless children
* Criminalization of parents

Cost to Taxpayers

As noted, child support enforcement was originally justified and
federalized to save taxpayers' money by recovering welfare costs. Yet it
has incurred a steadily increasing deficit, amounting to $2.7 billion in
2002. "Even amidst cutbacks by the federal government for entitlement
block grants and restrictions on the use federal incentive dollars as
matching funds, the states' standing remains to gain billions in funding
by including more and more of the middle-class in their welfare
programs." 15

Cost to the Taxpayer of the Child Support Enforcement Program

Yet this is only the surface, ignoring indirect administrative and other
costs. Arguably this abuse may be costing taxpayers (federal, state, and
local) tens of billions of dollars annually. Assistant HHS Secretary
Wade Horn argues that most of the $47 billion spending in his department
is necessitated by broken homes and fatherless children.16 Further,
given the social costs Dr. Horn and others have demonstrated to be
connected with fatherless homes - including crime, truancy, drug abuse,
unwed teen pregnancy, and more - it is reasonable to see tens of
billions of dollars expended in law enforcement and education programs
as among the costs. Most strikingly, the law enforcement and criminal
justice systems are diverted from their original purpose of protecting
society from violent criminals to criminalizing non-violent parents and
keeping them apart from their children.

Subsidy on Family Breakup and Fatherless Homes

Child support is usually justified as providing for fatherless children.
Yet there are indications that it serves as a taxpayer-funded subsidy on
such children, providing an incentive for both mothers and states to
remove more children from their fathers. How welfare has exercised this
effect on low-income communities has been well known for decades. Child
support creates a similar same effect on the middle class.

Because of IV-D funding, states must designate an active, present parent
as "absent," even when both parents are fit, willing, and able to care
for their children. These incentives drive courts to rule that a child's
"best interest" is to have limited contact with one parent in order to
conform to the Title IV-D model of custodial and non-custodial instead
of two custodial parents.

Further, child support creates an economic incentive for mothers (who
file most divorces) to break up their families. Robert Willis calculates
that child support levels exceeding the cost of raising children creates
"an incentive for divorce by the custodial mother." His analysis
indicates that only between one-fifth and one-third of child support
payments are actually used for the children; the rest is profit for the
custodial parent. "We believe that this recent entitlement," write two
other scholars, "...has led to the destruction of families by creating
financial incentives to divorce [and] the prevention of families by
creating financial incentives not to marry upon conceiving of a
child."17 This simply extends well-established findings that increased
welfare payments result in increased divorce.18 In this case, however, a
dimension of law enforcement is added, which becomes effectively a
system of federal divorce enforcement. " Enforcement...is the critical
variable in the choice dilemma because it represents a greater surety in
the assessment of the probability of attaining rewards," write Folse and
Varela-Alvarez. "Strong enforcement, while it is an agreed upon societal
goal to protect children, may, in fact, lead to class-based micro-level
decisions that lead to the unintended consequence of increasing the
likelihood of divorce."19 In other words, a mother can escape the
uncertainties, vicissitudes, and compromises inherent to life shared
with a working husband by divorcing, whereupon she acquires the police
as a private collection agency who will force him, at the point of a gun
if necessary, to pay her the family income that she then controls alone.
At a time when the government is creating new federal programs
ostensibly to strengthen marriage, it is operating a program that is
working directly contrary to that aim. Bryce Christensen points to
"evidence of the linkage between aggressive child-support policies and
the erosion of wedlock." "Because the politicians who have framed such
[child support] policies have done nothing to reinforce the social ideal
of keeping children in intact families," he explains, "they have -
however unintentionally - actually reduced the likelihood that a growing
number of children will enjoy the tremendous economic, social, and
psychological benefits which the realization of that ideal can bring."20

This has created an administrative regime where child support is no
longer primarily a system of requiring men to take responsibility for
the offspring they have sired and then abandoned, as the public has been
led to believe; overwhelmingly child support is now a system whereby "a
father is forced to finance the filching of his own children."21 "By
allowing a faithless wife to keep her children and a sizable portion of
her former spouse's income," writes Christensen, "current child-support
laws have combined with no-fault jurisprudence to convert wedlock into
snare for many guiltless men." 22

Criminalization of Parents

To collect federal incentive payments, states must channel all child
support payments through their criminal enforcement machinery - not just
delinquent payments but current payments, thus subjecting law-abiding
citizens to criminal enforcement measures. Private domestic relations
matters are being unnecessarily criminalized even when there is no
support problem and the non-custodial parent pays consistently. State
agencies place all divorced people in the criminal machinery regardless
of need or circumstance, because the more clients in the program, the
more federal funding the agency receives.

Though most of these fathers were actively involved in raising their
children - indeed, they often clamor for more time with them - these
fathers had to be designated as "absent" in order to fit into the
welfare model, with the unstated stigma that they had "abandoned" their
children when clearly they had done no such thing.

The federal funding also supplies an added incentive both to make
guidelines as onerous as possible and to squeeze every dollar from every
parent available (as well as to turn as many parents as possible into
obligors by providing financial incentives for mothers to divorce).
"From 1989 to 1998," writes Georgia assistant district attorney William
Akins, "the federal government provided welfare and collection incentive
funds to the states based on the gross amount of the total child support
payments recovered from non-custodial parents, thus creating a
corresponding incentive to establish support obligations as high as
possible without regard to appropriateness of amount."23 This has led to
what Robert Seidenberg describes as "a windfall of income for
middle-class and upper-middle-class divorced women."24 Thus the
impossible burdens that plunder and criminalize otherwise law-abiding
parents and the heavy-handed criminal enforcement measures against
plainly innocent people that are now too becoming conspicuous to ignore.

Amid the near-hysteria that has been generated on the subject of unpaid
child support and "deadbeat dads," the fact remains that no such problem
has ever been demonstrated. While it is obligatory, when offering the
mildest criticism of the child support system, to state that "some"
fathers no doubt do fail to provide for their children, there is simply
no scientific evidence that there is or ever has been a widespread
problem of fathers abandoning their children and not paying child
support. No government or academic study has ever documented such a
problem. Prior to the creation of the federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement (OCSE) and throughout its 31-year history, no study has ever
been conducted on the reason for its existence. Indeed, several
federally funded studies have come to the conclusion that no such
problem exists, and a full-scale government-sponsored study was
cancelled by OCSE when an earlier pilot study threatened to undermine
the justification for the agency's existence by demonstrating that
nonpayment of child support was not a serious problem.25

Further, our awareness of this alleged problem has come entirely from
government sources. No public outcry ever preceded the creation of
enforcement machinery; nor has any public discussion ever been held in
the media. In fact, no public perception of such a problem even existed
until public officials began saying it did.

In light of the facts above, it is difficult to escape the conclusion
that the public has been seriously misled by a kind of optical illusion.
What we have been told is an epidemic of irresponsible fathers is in
reality a serious abuse of power by the government.

Footnotes

1.Lary Holland and Jason Bottomley, "How Federal Welfare Funding Drives
Judicial Discretion in Child-Custody Determinations and Domestic
Relations Matters," North Country Gazette, 28 February 2006
(http://www.northcountrygazette.org/a...dCustody.html).

2. Child Support Enforcement (CSE) FY 2002 Preliminary Data Report, 29
April 2003
(http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/...m_datareport/),
figures 1 and 2.

3. 2003 Green Book, House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee,
WMCP: 108-6,section 8, p. 8-69 and table 8-5
(http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/.../Section8.pdf).

4. 1998 Green Book, House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee
Print, WMCP:105-7, U.S. Government Printing Office Online via GPO
Access, section 8: Child Support Enforcement Program
(http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-...ddress=162.140.....

5. Report to the House Of Representatives Committee on Ways And Means
and the Senate Committee on Finance: Child Support Enforcement Incentive
Funding (Washington, DC: Department of Health and Human Services,
February 1997).

6. 2003 Green Book, table 8-4.

7. C. Jesse Green, interview with Michael E. Tindall, Michigan Lawyers
Weekly (http://www.michiganlawyersweekly.com...tindall.htm;no
date, accessed 1 May 2002).

8. HHS press release, 27 January 2000.

9. Child Support Enforcement: Clear Guidance Would Help Ensure Proper
Access to Information and Use of Wage Withholding by Private Firms
(Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, GAO-02-349, March 2002), p. 7.

10, FY 1998 Preliminary Data Report (Washington: Office of Child Support
Enforcement, May 1999), figure 2, p. 35; Child Support Enforcement:
Effects of Declining Welfare Caseloads Are Beginning to Emerge
(Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, GAO/HEHS-99-105, 1999), pp. 7-8.

11. At the same time as the Clinton administration was touting its
success, the Ways and Means Committee was arriving at a very different
conclusion. "In 1978, less than one-fourth of child support payments
were collected through the IV-D [welfare] program. This percentage,
however, has increased every year since 1978. By 1993, more than
two-thirds (67%) of all child support payments were made through the
IV-D program. The implication of this trend is that the IV-D program may
be recruiting more and more cases from the private sector, bringing them
into the public sector, providing them with subsidized services (or
substituting Federal spending for State spending), but not greatly
improving child support collections. Whatever the explanation, it seems
that improved effectiveness of the IV-D program has not led to
significant improvement of the nation's child support performance." 1998
Green Book, section 8.

12. Jane L. Ross, Child Support Enforcement: Opportunity to Reduce
Federal and State Costs (Washington, DC: General Accounting Office,
Report # GAO/T-HEHS-95-181), 13 June 1995, pp. 5-6.

13.Molly Olson, "Title IV-D: Child Support Collection and Enforcement,
Welfare Service Program," (Roseville, Minnesota: Center for Parental
Responsibility, March 2006).

14. "Statement of Leslie L. Frye, Chief, Office of Child Support
California Department of Social Services

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House
Committee on Ways and Means,

Hearing on the Administration's Child Support Enforcement Incentive
Payment Proposal, March 20, 1997"
(http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.../3-20frye.htm),
pp. 1-2.

15. Holland and Bottomley, "How Federal Welfare Funding Drives Judicial
Discretion."

16. "Wedded to Marriage," National Review Online, 9 August 2005
(http://www.nationalreview.com/commen...508090806.asp).

17.Robert J. Willis, "Child Support and the Problem of Economic
Incentives," p. 42, and Robert A. McNeely and Cynthia A. McNeely,
"Hopelessly Defective: An Examination of the Assumptions Underlying
Current Child Support Guidelines," p. 170; both in William S. Comanor
(ed.), The Law and Economics of Child Support Payments (Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar, 2004).

18.Saul Hoffman and Greg Duncan, "The Effects of Incomes, Wages, and
AFDC Benefits on Marital Disruption," Journal of Human Resources 30
(1995), pp. 19-41; Lowell Gallaway and Richard Vedder, Poverty, Income
Distribution, the Family and Public Policy (Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office, 1986), pp. 84-89.

19. Kimberly Folse and Hugo Varela-Alvarez, "Long-Run Economic
Consequences of Child Support Enforcement for the Middle Class," Journal
of Socio-Economics, vol. 31, no. 3 (2002), pp. 274, 283, 284.

20. Bryce Christensen, "The Strange Politics of Child Support," Society,
vol. 39, no. 1 (November-December 2001), pp. 67, 63.

21. Jed H. Abraham, From Courtship to Courtroom: What Divorce Law Is
Doing to Marriage (New York: Bloch, 1999), p. 151.

22. Christensen, "Strange Politics of Child Support," p. 65 (original
emphasis).

23. William C. Akins, "Why Georgia's Child Support Guidelines Are
Unconstitutional," Georgia Bar Journal, vol. 6, no. 2 (October 2000),
pp. 9-10.

24. Robert Seidenberg, The Father's Emergency Guide to Divorce-Custody
Battle (Takoma Park, Maryland: JES, 1997), pp. 107-108; Irwin Garfinkel
and Sarah McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children, A New American
Dilemma (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 24-25.
Christensen also found "windfalls to the custodial parents." "Strange
Politics of Child Support," p. 66.

25. S.L. Braver, P.J. Fitzpatrick, and R. Bay, "Adaption of the
Non-Custodial Parents: Patterns over Time," paper presented at the
conference of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta, Georgia,
1988; F.L. Sonenstein and C.A. Calhoun, "Determinants of Child Support:
A Pilot Survey of Absent Parents," Contemporary Policy Issues 8 (1990);
Carmen D. Solomon, The Child Support Enforcement Program: Policy and
Practice, Congressional Research Service, 8 December 1989, pp. 1-3.

About the Author

Stephen Baskerville is a fellow at the Howard Center for Family,
Religion, and Society and president of the American Coalition for
Fathers and Children. His book, Taken Into Custody: The War Against
Fathers, Marriage, and the Family will be published in July by
Cumberland House Publishing."

CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.

BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...