RightTurns.com - Forum RICHARD GREEN, M.D.
Limit Federal Child Support Enforcement to Welfare Cases
February 1, 2002
In the early 1980’s, a consensus was reached that America’s poor fathers
were abandoning their children, and that the government should make them pay.
President Reagan coined the term “deadbeat dad.” Why should the welfare
program support their girlfriends, ex-wives, and children? While voices from the
right preached “responsible fatherhood,” liberals vowed to “protect poor
women and children.”
In a misguided attempt to offset the financial cost of supporting welfare
mothers and to reduce child poverty, the Feds got into the child support
collection business. Divorced and never-married fathers became “noncustodial
parents.” Fathers of children on welfare were targeted by both political
parties.
The Family Support Act (1988) gave the federal government tremendous
centralized power over all aspects of child support policy. Child support orders
could no longer be determined by a judge according to the reasonable needs of
the children. Instead, the Act required each state to adopt its own numerical
“guideline” to calculate child support, or risk losing federal welfare
funding. The only restriction on state child support guidelines was that awards
be “appropriate.” Federal law funded child support enforcement programs in
every state, and most importantly, rewarded states with “incentive payments”
based on a percentage of money collected.
Child support enforcement has completely failed in the primary goal of
forcing poor fathers to reimburse the welfare program. According to the House
Committee on Ways and Means 2000 Green Book, in 1998 the federal government
spent one dollar collecting every 74 cents of child support in welfare cases.
That year alone the federal government lost 1.4 billion dollars on child support
enforcement. Meanwhile, the program is very popular with states, which in the
same year earned 340 million from child support enforcement activities.
No state has been successful in collecting child support from poor fathers,
but the federal funds keep rolling in. Ironically, the federal government is now
paying millions to state child support enforcement programs primarily to collect
non-welfare-related child support awards. In 1998, less than 20% of state
collections were for welfare cases. These collections do not reimburse the
welfare program, so the federal government and taxpayers lose more and more
money every year. Moreover, there is not a shred of evidence that more than a
decade of non-welfare-related child support enforcement has prevented child
poverty.
How have states managed to make child support enforcement profitable? By
inflating guideline child support awards.
In 1989, to comply with federal law, states hastily adopted the required
child support guidelines. Conveniently, the federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement (OCSE) heavily promoted one such guideline, “Income Shares.”
This guideline was developed by Robert Williams under federal contract. The
premise of the Income Shares guideline is that child support should guarantee
children the same theoretical “share” of parental income that they would
have enjoyed had their parents been living together. For one child, the children’s
share of the parent’s after-tax income was arbitrarily set at 25%; for two
children, 40%; and for three children, 50%. Omitted is the troublesome fact that
after separation, two households need to be supported. The guideline was
actually designed for welfare cases, and results in child support awards that
for middle and upper income families far exceed the actual costs of raising
children. Nonetheless, most states quickly adopted the Income Shares guideline
in 1989 so they could remain eligible for federal welfare payments. Other states
decided to adopt guidelines that require the noncustodial parent to transfer a
set percentage of income to the custodial household, based on the number of
children supported.
Virtually overnight, child support awards tripled. Inflated child support
awards would maximize state child support collections, justify the
administrative expenses of child support enforcement programs, and ensure the
continuing influx of federal incentive payments.
Although they may help balance state budgets, excessive child support awards
are extremely harmful to working, middle-class divorced fathers. Most of these
fathers did not request divorce and many have substantial joint physical custody
of their children. After child support is paid, however, fathers now often find
it impossible to provide an adequate second home for their children. For
example, in California, a mother earning $35,000 per year, living with two
children 75% of the time, would receive $15,000 tax-free from her ex-husband
earning $75,000. After taxes, the mother would net $44,000, the father $34,000.
This baseline Income Shares award excludes child care expenses, special
educational expenses, and health insurance costs, which are “add-ons” to the
father’s support obligation.
Federal involvement in child support enforcement has eliminated the normal
checks and balances among the legislative, judicial, and administrative branches
of government. The same branches of government determine, enforce, and benefit
from child support payments. States have been given carte blanche to empty the
wallets of middle-income divorced fathers for the benefit of bureaucrats and
special interest groups, rather than children.
Child support enforcement is rife with conflicts of interest and overt
corruption:
The OCSE contracted with a firm called Child Support Recoveries, Inc. to
certify that state child support guidelines were “appropriate.” This company
contracts with states as a child support collection agency, and has a direct
financial stake in high child support awards.
State legislatures, including California’s, routinely contract with a firm
called Policy Studies, Inc. to review the “appropriateness” of state child
support guidelines. This closely held Denver firm is headed by none other than
child support entrepreneur Robert Williams, who as described above, developed
the Income Shares guideline. Again, in a clear conflict of interest, Policy
Studies, Inc. derives substantial revenue from child support collections. The
higher the child support awards, the more money this company makes.
The original goal of federal child support enforcement, to reimburse the
welfare program, has not been achieved by any state. This is because
welfare-related child support debt, especially at these absurd guideline levels,
appears to be largely uncollectible. There is no legitimate federal interest in
subsidizing state child support collections in non-welfare cases. Indeed, as
shown above, the federal government, through the OCSE and incentive payments,
has caused the gross inflation of child support awards. Poor fathers simply can’t
pay, and middle-income fathers are financially devastated.
Child support should be set at levels that provide for the reasonable
financial support of children. Prior to the federal intrusion into domestic
relations law, child support in each case was determined equitably, by a judge
if necessary. Now, child support awards are specifically calculated to maximize
federal funding of state bureaucracies.
Welfare Reauthorization is an opportunity for Congress to drastically limit
the scope of federal child support enforcement activities, and to reallocate
welfare dollars to more worthwhile causes. The following simple changes in
federal law are politically possible and would correct many of the distortions
caused by the child support enforcement program:
Amend the U.S. Code so that federal child support laws apply only to welfare
cases. Discontinue federal subsidization of non-welfare-related state child
support enforcement activities.
Use the federal savings to fund state education and job training programs for
the poor.
Require the OCSE to contract with an unbiased economic consulting firm to
develop a uniform set of child support guidelines for welfare cases only, based
on the actual marginal costs of the presence of children in the custodial and
noncustodial households.
Federal welfare money should be used to help poor families. This truism has
been lost in the child support enforcement program amid a scramble for federal
funds and political power. It’s time to limit the scope of this corrupt,
wasteful, and ultimately harmful program.
Write Richard Green at Richard.M.Green@kp.org
Richard M. Green, M.D. is Chief of Neurology at the Kaiser Permanente-Los
Angeles Medical Center. He is a co-custodial father of two children and an
active member of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, the Alliance
for Noncustodial Parents Rights, and the Center For Children's Justice.
