Child Support Debate Heats Up

Child Support Debate Heats Up

A comment published in the October issue of the American Political Science Association's "PS: Political Science and Politics" describes the argument against current child support guidelines as "concrete" and "alarming."

Guidelines are based on a model developed by the child support collection industry with the intent of arbitrarily increasing the average support order to 250 percent of what was deemed appropriate under established child support law. The increased debt and cash-flow resulting from increased award levels profits the government and private collection industry. Courts have upheld use of these guidelines by eliminating constitutional rights in favor of unchecked government power. As a result there has been a very disturbing and fundamental change in the relationship between family and government.

The comment, by child support researcher Roger F. Gay, follows debate in the same journal between Howard University political science professor Stephen Baskerville and Jo Michelle Beld, a St. Olaf College professor who served as a consultant on guidelines to the Child Support Enforcement Division of the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

Baskerville, Stephen (2002), "The Politics of Fatherhood" PS: Political Science and Politics Volume 35 No. 4, December, pp. 695-99. http://www.apsanet.org/PS/dec02/baskerville.cfm

Beld, Jo Michelle (2003), "Revisiting "The Politics of Fatherhood": Administrative Agencies, Family Life, and Public Policy." PS: Political Science and Politics Volume 36 No. 4, October, pp. 713-18. http://www.apsanet.org/PS/oct03/beld.pdf
(her reply to the above)

Baskerville, Stephen (PS 2003), "The Politics of Child Support" PS: Political Science and Politics Volume 36 No. 4, October. pp. 719-20. http://www.apsanet.org/PS/oct03/baskerville.pdf
(his reply to her comments)


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Eliminate the impossible and whatever
remains, no matter how improbable, must
be the truth.

---- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ---