Child Support: The Fallacy, The Fraud, And The Failure
The American Legal System At Its Worst
A Historical Perspective
The fundamental changes in American Law that lead to the body of law we now call, “Family Law”, arose in 1960’s, born of the Feminist Rights Movements. Let’s make it clear from the start that the flaws and failures of the “family law” system are not of the making of that movement, and that both their intent and causes were good and just.
A sociological study done thirty some years ago found that only 40% of “fathers” nationwide paid any support for their children. Somebody in government got the bright idea that we could save the taxpayer scads of money, paid out in welfare, if those fathers were “held responsible” for supporting their own children.
The theory wasn’t half bad, just founded on a fallacy. Multiple studies, beginning from that point and continuing yet today, demonstrate this. Today, even the author of that study made more than thirty years ago, admits that the “statistical model” used to analyze that data was fundamentally flawed. In fact, the statistics showed that, back then, 80% of fathers paid child support. Yet even today, that study is widely quoted in numerous articles and legislative hearings regarding issues of child support.
Today, we know a whole lot more. Today, those same statistics show that currently 80% of fathers pay child support. Further, we know that another 13% of fathers simply cannot afford to pay anything. Another 3% acknowledge a “responsibility”, but refuse to pay because they are denied access to their own children, and another 3% claim they are “forced into hiding” by the child support enforcement system and unable to pay for fear of revealing themselves. Total: 99%. Ergo, only 1% of men actually qualify as what could truly be considered “bad dads.”
Please note that the percentage of men paying support for their children more than thirty years ago is identical to the percent of men paying that support today. The system itself has failed by that very fact, because it has not reduced the demands on welfare at all, as was its original intent.
The Fraud
Enter the lawyers. The entire “family law” system is founded on litigation, lots of it, and solely serves to feed the legal community. Much can be said about the scam perpetrated in that area of “family law” called the Child Protection Services racket, but this analysis will leave that to those more experienced and educated in that field. For these purposes, let’s focus on the “divorce industry,” a government-sponsored money-laundering scheme to enrich mostly lawyers.
Legal Fraud
Quite simply, the law, well supported by the US Supreme Court, states that the State must first demonstrate a “compelling interest,” and by which claim it may then, and only then, interfere with the “ownership and custody” of a parent’s children. Further, that such a claim must be demonstrated in all of the protections afforded through “due process.” That is, all the protections of both the State and Federal Constitution: An actual hearing with testimony, witnesses and statements of law, culminated in a “lawful” finding by the court that accounts to those facts presented and those laws stated.
It would appear that “everyone knows” that the State has a “compelling interest” in the welfare of children – i.e., the “children’s best interest.” This is the first fraud, because the State simply “presumes” that authority, without any of the above procedural due process – no hearing, no evidence, nothing. It is called “procedural fraud.”
The second fraud appears immediately thereafter, when they “presume” to assign custody of the children, presumed to be the mother more than 90% of the time. Again, the US Supreme Court says that “absent a finding of unfitness”, a parent cannot be deprived of the custody and ownership of their children, and that, again, all of the procedural rights of due process must be upheld. Ergo, custody may not simply be “assigned” and then just approved by the court. It must be “demonstrated” in the actual procedure of hearing, evidence, law and “finding.”
The third fraud follows post haste. They demand “child support” from the now disenfranchised parent, most notably fathers. This is the key; it’s for the money. Make no doubt about it; it is not the child support money, but the taxpayer’s money. Child support generally does go to the “custodial parent”, but it is the State and Federal funds that abound for the purpose of “enforcing and collecting child support” that are the real goal of those who “act for the government.”
This third fraud is, at law, no better than the first two. In Civil Law, a “contract”, “debt” or “obligation” is set forth in writing, but apparently not in the supposedly Civil “Family Law” system. They won’t show you a contract, and in fact refuse to discuss it. It is “presumed” to exist. They won’t show you the terms, nor discuss the determination of the amount of alleged “debt.” Again, the US Supreme Court clearly states that a “hidden contract is an abhorrent in law.”
The fourth fraud in law is that minor little detail called enforcement. “Failure to pay child support” is stated as a “civil contempt”, ergo refusing to obey a court order. In law, there are two forms of “contempt of court”, first, civil contempt, which is failing to do what the court orders you to do, and, second, criminal contempt, which is doing what the court ordered you not to do. The former is punishable by fiscal sanctions – fines; and the latter by incarceration. Except, of course, in Family Law, where the plain and simple standard is “pay up or go to jail.”
Both the State and Federal courts duly uphold that there must be proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that this alleged contempt was a “willful disobedience” of the court’s order, and further, that the burden of that proof is on the prosecution to show that “an ability to pay” exists, but was willfully disobeyed. Except, of course, in Family Law, where “pay up of go to jail” is enforced almost universally: No hearing, no evidence, and no testimony required.
The Practice of Extortion Fraud
In practice, it is a simple system of collusion and abusing the privilege of authority. The “prosecutor” for the child support enforcement system “just does it”, and the judge “just ignores it.” Lawyers, whether willing or unwilling, are caught between hell and high water, but fundamentally are an integral part of the fraud, and reap enormous financial dividends from it.
A couple gets a divorce, and immediately the “presumed non-custodial parent” gets a notice from the child support enforcement offices demanding that they “appear” and reveal their financial information. Many States have statutes that say this information must be revealed, under penalty of contempt. Federal, constitutional law however says that your civil rights to not answer, under the 5th Amendment, extends to all aspects of law, not just the criminal arena. “Too bad”, says the State court, “Answer or else!”
The “caseworker” determines who gets custody, and how much child support will be paid. Enforcement is immediate. The first three legal frauds discussed above are committed in one basic act, not by a judge, but by a caseworker. The court merely “approves” whatever the caseworker says. Supposedly, that makes it a “legal decision.” Note the lack of any hearing, any evidence or any actual “findings” issued by a court. This is the entire basis of their procedural fraud, to simply ignore any actual “procedure” that might demonstrate that essential “due process.”
Ostensibly, the caseworker is required to use “guidelines,” set by the State but regulated by the federal funding mandates, to set the amount of child support. In theory, that is 17% of your gross income for one child, 25% for two, etc. The trick is that they can “impute” your income. The original idea of “imputing wages” was to “catch” people who are making more than they claim or seek “under-employment to reduce the child support amounts. However, it is commonly and widely used to “up the ante” and increase child support revenues.
Your first instinct is to hire a lawyer and appeal this decision. Lawyers, as “officers of the court” are prevented from arguing for your rights in these supposed Family Courts! Either by “court rules”, a fraudulent misrepresentation by the lawyer in as much as the State’s own published Court Rules make no such mention, or by the retributions of the court and prosecutor aimed at all of that lawyer’s other clients. Basically, their sole function is to “cut a deal” for you, probably better than the original exorbitant imputation, but still more than “the truth”.
Since now you are under a court order to pay child support (or go to jail), the odds are that now you can’t afford a lawyer at all. Forget any deals. Neither the prosecutor nor your Ex will present any evidence to demonstrate this fraudulent imputation, and even though you have competent, clear evidence to the contrary, which neither the prosecutor nor your Ex will contend is false, the judge will “dismiss” your appeal. This is the procedural fraud of “administrative ruling.” No actual “finding” is made by the court, which would then have to include that evidence and testimony. Judges will even “wave away” documentation you have, making you just read it out loud, as a means of keeping it from being entered into your record.
Judges are commonly known to “go home and do some research” and enter that alleged evidence in support of their dismissal. This is a further fraud, this time called “substantive fraud”. The judge is “acting for the prosecution”, and “entering evidence outside of the courtroom.” Both are fundamental violations of every State’s Court Rules, and a fundamental denial of any constitutional rights toward due process.
Needless to say, you appeal that decision again, but of it is within the same court as before, and of course the result will be the same. In fact, you are required to appeal twice before that court before being allowed, and told you can appeal to a higher court, the State Court of Appeals. For 99.9% of the population, this is a daunting task beyond their knowledge and comprehension. Without a lawyer, it seems impossible, and the cost of such an appeal can run $15-20,000. Now, six months of excessive child support payments has made you nearly or completely destitute.
It is called “adjudication by fiscal attrition.” When you go to that Appeals Court, they will not “refund” the excess, nor cease those collections, but merely, and only possibly, reduce those payments to what they should have been all along. “The Law” becomes a matter of whether it is bottom-line cheaper to pay their “buddy lawyer” for “justice”, or to pay their extortive demands. The bottom line is that most people cannot afford either.
The Extortion Fraud
Ultimately you reach a point where you cannot pay. These courts know that, and expect you to reach out to friends and family. They are using you as “bait” to “shakedown” the money any way they can. Again, US Supreme Court rulings state that this is clearly illegal. But ultimately, you will end up getting a Show Court Order, demanding that you appear in court and explain why you haven’t paid.
When you appear, the prosecutor will not show evidence that you can pay this money but refuse to do so. Instead you are required to show why you cannot. There is ample federal case law that says you don’t have to “show what is not” because it is nearly impossible to do! More case law that says the burden of proof is on the prosecutor, and more case law that says “an ability to pay” must be demonstrated before the penalties of incarceration can be applied.
The prosecutor has access to all of your records, such as employment, banks, etc., and is well aware that you can’t pay the money. They will not present that evidence even though, by law they are required to. Arguing your rights to due process or suggesting they have no evidence of an “ability to pay” will end up getting you put in jail for contempt anyway. Many States have limits for contempt proceedings, like a maximum of $500, yet it is common for them to demand far more. The only answer the court has is “pay up or go to jail,” and that answer was decided long before you entered the court.
Of course you can appeal this decision too, and of course it is in the same court. You know the answer to that. In some cases, they are known to enter that appeal or objection into the record of your case, but then simply refuse to answer it, not denying, dismissing or setting it for hearing – just ignore it! This is gross violation of every State’s Court Rules. Of course you can appeal to the Court of Appeals, but you can expect that to be after you have already done time in jail. Nor does “doing the time” relieve you of the financial demand, and in fact more support “debt” will accrue while you are in jail. They can, in most States, keep putting you in jail, up to a total six months in any given year, making it just that much more difficult to even make any payments.
They can, after three “offenses” put you in jail for up to ten years. After accumulating more than six months worth of child support debt, they can take away your driver’s license and any other “professional” licenses you may hold. Both of these would seem contrary to their supposed goal. You can’t find work or maintain a job without a car, and usually those professional licenses are the means you have of making any money. To understand all of this, go back to the statement back at the top, that it not about the child support money, but the Federal and State funding.
Paternity Fraud and the Welfare Mom
Two of the most critical abuses of this “Family Law” system involved how women are abusing it. Can’t really blame them, like in the Federal Tax system that provides “loopholes”, this system has holes you could drive a Mac truck through.
Paternity fraud is all too common. Most laboratories that do DNA paternity testing record that nearly a third of those tests come back as “not a match”. This includes married couples. No doubt there are thousands of cases that never get tested as well. Thousands of married fathers have discovered, only after going through a divorce, that another man fathered some of their children. Yet the courts claim that it would disrupt the children’s lives to discover that and is therefore not in the “children’s best interest”. The husband is ordered to continue to pay support for them, and even prevented from telling them on penalty of contempt.
It is common for an unmarried woman who had multiple partners during “the right time” to simply “pick a likely victim” and start prosecuting for the money. Many victims, because they did have sex with her, will not question the claim. While it would seem with the advent of DNA testing that it would be a “logical place to start”, most courts are resistant to insisting on “evidence,” commonly work to prevent testing at all or even just reject it under the guise of “the children’s best interest.” Also common, where the first “victim” turns out to not be the father, the women will just keep “going down the list”, until they get one who doesn’t “resist” or is actually proven to be the father. That list of “alleged” fathers, individually all get to pay the costs of testing and attorney fees, not to mention the traumatic disruption of their lives.
Recent cases have also shown that some women have “retrieved” used condoms, even from men they never had sex with, and used the contents to impregnate themselves. The issues of a man’s right to choose to be a father go far beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that, without a wink of consent of the father, a woman can choose to have an abortion, put a child up for adoption, abandon a child at the nearest fire station or hospital, or keep it and make the father pay for its support, often never even seeing his own child. Men have none of those choices, and are limited to the one and only choice, “pay up or go to jail.” The courts have long ignored that this is a clear violation of 14th Amendment rights to “equal treatment under the law” by hiding behind that ever present “the children’s best interest.”
Another common trick women use is to have multiple children by multiple fathers. As stated above, child support for once child is 17% of the father’s income, but only 25% if there are two children by the same father. For women, the solution is simple, by not having more than one child per father they can substantially increase the amount of child support they can receive. The Family Law system is actively discouraging marriage and family unity, and financially encouraging the “bastarding” of our society with fatherless children .
The Failure
Remember that the original intent of these laws was to reduce the costs to the taxpayer by reducing the needs for welfare. As a matter of statistical fact, it has not reduced the role of welfare even by 1%. The same percentage of fathers pay child support as did thirty years ago at its inception. Here, however, is where it gets truly ugly, and reveals that these government programs are the most destructive, debilitating and even deadly ever devised by our “public servants.”
The Basic Costs
While government child support advertises that it collected $18 billion in 2003, it also claims that the “administrative costs” were only $4.5 billion, or $1 spent for every $4 collected. This is a hidden lie. True, the administrative costs were as claimed. False, because they are only the beginning for the multiplicity of hidden costs.
One of the big keys to understanding this problem lies in understanding the money, or, as they say, follow the money trail. Caseworkers get a “bonus” for every case they “handle”, as do the agency heads. This commonly leads to, not only overburdening caseloads per caseworker, but also intentional acts to “create animosity and conflict” between couples to get them to “duke it out” so that there is a clear winner and a clear loser who pays child support. Joint custodies and equitable settlements are not in the caseworker or agency’s best interest. Bonuses are tied to some amount of child support being paid through their offices.
The Family Court judges get a “judicial award”. Every State has constitutional law that prevents a judge from being paid in relation to the “performance on his bench.” So it is commonly paid as an “award” to the judge’s retirement fund. Whether now or later, the judge personally profits by his acts. Further, that over-imputation of wages now comes into play, where the alleged amount owed is directly relevant to the amount of State and Federal funding. The higher the amounts owed, the bigger the paychecks.
Much of that State and Federal funding also goes to the courts and offices, which run the Family Law system. Besides these personal incentives, their professional “enterprise” gets more money to employ more people, and get new technology to pursue “the money” more effectively.
Virtually every responsible economist recognizes that the billions of dollars of child support supposed unpaid is not likely to ever be paid. Most experts agree that at least 90% of it is the product of the zealous fantasies of the public servants running these programs; and that the people who supposedly owe this debt simply don’t have the money and never did.
The Primary Hidden Costs
Even with extensive research, it is nearly impossible to discover the “hidden costs”, very likely because they don’t want us to know the real devastation being wrecked on the taxpayer. Hidden costs start where the judge “puts you on probation” for failing to pay child support. Ultimately this leads to a warrant for your arrest. Neither the caseworker and agency head nor the judge care much whether or not you actually pay, because they get even more State and Federal funds for putting people in jail for failing to pay child support.
The number of people in jail for failure to pay child support is a secret; and estimates range from 25% of all those incarcerated to 50% of all county jails. Either way, the numbers are staggering. First, the cost of incarcerating one person for a year is between $30-50,000. America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, at 1 person for every 147. If a quarter of those people are held for child support charges, the taxpayer for imprisoning “bad dads” is approximately $20 billion, or more than all the child support collected.
Those people sitting in jail are not earning money, and therefore not paying taxes, ergo creating “lost money.” Many people have to hire lawyers, not to defend themselves from their Ex, but to defend themselves from their own government. The “divorce industry” is booming for lawyers, and is primarily why both the American Bar Association and Trial Lawyers Association have been instrumental in developing this system, and have a fundamental interest in promoting its continuation. Remember that the judges and prosecutors are lawyers too.
Conservative estimates put these hidden “legal counsel” cost figures in the $100 billion range, and some experts suggest it may be as high as $200 billion. If incarceration costs run another $20 billion – or higher, and supposed “administrative costs” are about $4.5 billion, the American Public is paying a minimum of $125 billion to “collect a debt” of $18 billion. Remember that it still has not reduced welfare by a single iota and while the receivers of the child support do get “most” of their $18 billion, the primary receivers of the other $107 billion are not children, but lawyers and other members of the legal community.
Approximately 25,000 men committed suicide last year. While we do not know the exact reasons why, because they are not here to tell us, we do know that 80% of them were “recently involved” in a Family Court case. That, on average, is almost 400 men for every State. We can’t even begin to estimate that price tag, except, sardonically to say, that none of them are paying taxes anymore either.
Thousands more men languish in jails for crimes committed when the “snapped.” Having your children stolen from you, your house and all your property, often losing your job and then being put in “debtors prison” has a way of driving even a “reasonable man” over the edge. The recent events of the “East Coast Snipers,” whose story began in a Family Court on the West Coast, are only a small sample of the vast extent of this horrific policy.
The Grotesque Hidden Costs
It is our children who are and will pay the truly hidden costs, both in taxes, and in the quality of their lives. These programs are systematically, and intentionally, disenfranchising children from their fathers, because well, because it is good for big-government business.
Those who have an interest in perpetuating this system would have us believe that this is the fault of “bad dads” who don’t care to act as good parents to their children. Of course, now we have more tax money being spent to encourage fathers to act like better dads, but have not yet recognized the true source of these problems never was the dads.
Most dads do care very much about their kids, but these government programs are very much designed to drive them away in droves. Teaching “parenting skills” to a man who cannot afford to eat because of governmental extortions, is a futile scam, aimed solely at political pacification of “the masses” and not a purposeful address of the problems.
Children who are so disenfranchised from a father’s “guidance and counsel” are:
5 times more likely to commit suicide.
32 times more likely to run away.
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders.
14 times more likely to commit rape: This applies to boys of course.
9 times more likely to drop out of high school.
10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances.
9 times more likely to end up in a state-operated institution.
20 times more like to end up in prison.
All of the above are serious societal problems that, of course, require more tax money; but now to deal with all the bad kids they have purposefully created. Incidentally, those “bad boys” are also significantly more likely to become “bad dads” themselves. It is a downward spiraling system that can only ultimately get much worse. We cannot even begin to estimate the future fiscal costs to taxpayers, much less to the “fiber” of our society.
Band-Aids For A Cancer Patient
Recently, many states have announced legislative “studies”, introduced new legislation, or “amended” some of their “family law” system. Virtually all of it is akin to putting band-aids on a cancer patient. These committees consistently are composed of “family court” judges, family law attorneys, and caseworkers; and all are the very people whose greatest interest is in continuation of the status quo. A recent legislative study in Ohio is a prime case in point – the committee members were exactly as that stated above.
Beyond that, one of the most powerful key components is the Federal “guidelines and standards” which dictate formulas and rules to the State. Failing to meet those Federal formulas and rules means the reduction or complete cutting-off of those crucial Federal funds. It is these Federal funds that drive the States, and the incentive/bonus system, paid from those funds, that drives the people working for the legal system. Lawyers are driven by the lucrative hoard of litigation it all creates.
Many students of socio/economic political systems now acknowledge that the current system of Family Law in this country is nearly identical to the system used in the “old USSR.” Many also maintain that that system was, in large part, responsible for the collapse of that government. Our Family Law system is an abject socialism, not just “a little” socialistic, but a disease-ridden, corrupt socialism that will ultimately destroy us.
To suggest “something must be done about it” is woefully inadequate. “Who” is to do this “something”? Would we have more laws, rules and guidelines, and by the very people who are instrumental in designing and perpetrating this existing “plan”? Would we have more and bigger, big-government rule our lives? The answers to this are well beyond this author’s ability to even begin to suggest.
Except that this author will say: Simply eliminating the entire child support system would save the taxpayer at least 100 billion dollars every year. It might also just save our society.
This article was published without an author associated with it and it was on A Matter of Justice Coalition’s website. Reprinted with their permission.
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