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« on: Nov 06, 2007, 08:30:35 AM »
The true nature of child support has nothing to do with ensuring that children are financially supported, and everything to do with “the money”.
If the true nature and purpose of child support was to ensure the support of the children, then the child support laws would require the receiver of child support to spend the child support on the children’s direct needs. The laws would also require the receiver of child support to account for how the child support is spent. The current laws and system require nether. In fact the current laws and system are structured so that the child support received becomes that person’s sole property and can be spent on anything they choose to spend it on. They are not required to spend one cent on their children. In fact the children don’t even have a legal right or claim to the money. Again the true nature of child support has nothing to do with ensuring that the children are financially supported. In truth what we call child support is merely a redistribution of wealth form one parent to the other. As a result the current child support laws and system is flawed at its very core, and doesn’t work.
Also, in most states the child support guidelines are not even based on current economic principles or data directly related to what it actually costs to support a child in a divorced family. In fact, the typical child support guidelines is based solely on income and completely ignores expenses. Accordingly, the child support awards have no relationship to the actual economic costs of financially supporting a child. As a result, the underlying child support awards are also flawed and do nothing to ensure the financial support of the child. Again, it is merely about the money and transferring wealth.
I also find it interesting that whenever the topic of accountability of how child support is spent comes up, that typically the people who receive minor amounts of child have no problem with accountability. However, the vast majority of people who receive large amounts of child support would never agree to accounting for how it is spent. One of my core beliefs is that people with nothing to hide, will hide nothing. So I wonder, what are these people trying to hide by not agreeing to a system of accountability? Could it be that the truth would come out that the child support received isn’t being used on the child’s direct financial needs? Or that the child support awards are excessive?
Personally I would like the current laws and system scrapped and a new systems adopted. I would love to see a new system premised on both parents financially supporting their children. I would like to see an escrow type account set up where both parents would pay into it, and both parents can withdraw from it to pay for the direct expenses of the child. There would be detailed regulations/guidelines which would clearly list the expenses that qualify, and expenses that don’t qualify for reimbursement out of the account. I personally think that this would be a much better system