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Topics - joni

#1


Here's a great group if your jurisdiction is in Michigan

http://www.dadsofmichigan.org/phpbb2/
#2

go to this link and you'll be able to compute what your child support is

http://courts.michigan.gov/scao/services/focb/focb_marginsoft.htm
#3

ATTENTION MICHIGAN CHILD SUPPORT PAYORS/RECEIPIENTS:

A major national press/media reporter is seeking to interview child support payors and recipients in Michigan who have documented proof that their child support payments have been lost, misapplied, etc., by the Friend of the Court (FOC) or State Disbursement Unit (SDU) resulting in financial hardships.

If you qualify, please respond (via email reply only) with the following information not later than Wednesday, June 9:

Payor & Recipient Name/addresses/phone numbers
Michigan County of jurisdiction
FOC Case#
Amount of error

Important...please do not respond if you are unable to verify your claim of errors with the appropriate documentation (copies required).  In such event, your case will not be used and valuable time would be wasted.  Forward this email as appropriate.

Thank you,

Murray Davis
Vice President
The National Family Justice Association
#4

http://www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0403/07/a01-84246.htm

Snags in state's $459 million system don't give dads credit, leave kids without money

By Gary Heinlein, and Kim Kozlowski / The Detroit News

John M. Galloway / Special to The Detroit News
 
Michigan's child support system

* Approximately $30 million in support is disbursed each week.

* Michigan collected $1.4 billion in child support last year, third highest among the 50 states. Michigan has the second largest support caseload in the nation.

* By changing to a centralized computer tracking system in October in compliance with a federal deadline, Michigan avoided $147.5 million in federal penalties.

Source: State of Michigan

WEBBERVILLE — A federally mandated $459 million record-keeping system, intended to correct Michigan's creaky, mistake-filled process for tracking payments to parents and their children, has instead caused a new wave of problems for those paying and receiving child support.

Rather than streamline services to 2.5 million adults and kids affected by nearly 800,000 child support orders, the new computer system has created errors and added headaches for parents and hard-pressed Friend of the Court agencies around the state.

The system, hastily installed in October to meet a federal deadline, may take years to fix, officials said.

Two years ago, a Detroit News investigation found that most of the agencies had too little staff and too much work. As a result, more than 400,000 children were getting none of the child support due them, and more than 600,000 custodial parents who were owed child support had been forced onto state assistance.

Since then, things haven't gotten better at Friend of the Court offices. State and local budget problems have resulted in hiring freezes, if not staff reductions.

The ongoing problems are making life more difficult for hundreds of parents, like Webberville resident Lara Vinluan, who depend on child support — not to mention those who are required to pay it and can face jail time if they don't.

<

Until the new system cranked up in October, child support payments of $341 flowed smoothly every two weeks from Ruben Davila's paychecks to Vinluan and their 3-year-old son Aidan. Afterward, the checks and amounts became sporadic.

Between October and February, the new system shorted them by $650 while continuing to deduct the proper amount from Davila's pay.

To make matters worse, Livingston County's Friend of the Court agency, where Vinluan's child support order is filed, seemed powerless to correct the problem. Local agencies have to rely on state computer technicians in Lansing to fix even the most elementary glitches.

"I contacted Livingston County many times, and the state many times, but they told me there was nothing they could do about it," said Vinluan, 34. Eventually, she received a check for $650, but that may not mean the problem has been fixed.

Vinluan and Davila say it appears the state's computer came up with the $650 check by deducting extra money from his paychecks. Further, the system now claims Davila, a Grosse Pointe Park resident also paying support for a child in Macomb County, is subject to three child support orders, rather than two, and is in arrears.

Such mixups have nearly doubled calls to Friend of the Court offices, said Jeff Albaugh, president of the Michigan Friend of the Court Association. An automated state phone system for child support clients is logging 230,000 calls a week.

More than 2,000 mistakes have cropped up since the system was activated, said Albaugh, head of Calhoun County's Friend of the Court office in Battle Creek. A task force has compiled a list of more than 60 corrections, some of them major, that programmers need to make.

"This system has the seeds of being a very good system, but a private business would have waited another year to implement it," Albaugh said.

Officials estimate it will take three years to meld data from the state's patchwork of 64 Friend of the Court offices and 83 county prosecutors into a smooth-running system.

Focus on certification

Michigan hurried to meet an Oct. 1 deadline and avoid $147.5 million in federal penalties. Failure would have resulted in an added penalty of $60 million. The federal government requires states to have automated child support systems linked to federal computers.

"The focus had been to get (federally) certified, so the blinders were put on and the (computer) vendor was told not to be distracted by anything, including user issues," Albaugh said. "Now problems are cropping up, creating more work rather than saving time."

Examples of problems abound.

Southgate parent Ken Machus Jr. had made about 10 trips in a year to Wayne County's Friend of the Court office at the Penobscot Building in Detroit, trying to clear up confusion over the $222.86 deducted weekly from his paychecks and sent to his ex-wife.

He's puzzled about the $38,000 he is listed as owing the state and his former wife, in addition to child support being deducted for a 17-year-old daughter of whom he's had legal custody for two years. More puzzling: His ex-wife also is supposed to be sending him $20 a week in support for the same daughter.

"When they switched to the computer, they sent me a letter saying it would be four to six months before my payments would be posted to my account, so I'm paying $222 a week and wondering where it's going," Machus said. "And I'm keeping very good records."

Staff is overburdened

Computer troubles only magnify tension in densely populated Wayne County, where nearly half the state's child support orders are lodged and an overburdened staff is too busy to answer phone calls.

But Wayne County Chief Judge Mary Beth Kelly, who's overseeing the agency, said the problems are being dealt with and the system promises to be a big help. In May, Wayne's office will expand with a 30-member call-in center staff, handling some of its 8,748 daily calls. The Wayne County Commission allocated $500,000 annually to fund it.

"There's no question the system works," Kelly said. "And the system has had profound benefits for Wayne County families. There's no question that with the system, more families have received more child support."

Marilyn Stephen, director of the state office of child support, acknowledged the changeover "has been a fairly bumpy ride," but said complaints have leveled off.

"A year from now, I think there will be significant improvement. Some of the larger issues will take more time."


Metro Detroit free-lance writer C. Lerner Rugenstein contributed to this report. You can reach Gary Heinlein at (517) 371-3660 or [email protected]
#5

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/g/gay/2004/gay010204.htm

Child Support Propaganda Haunts Michigan Papers

January 2, 2004


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Roger F. Gay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has been in office for one year. He promised to make child support collection his top priority. Just as knowledgeable observers would expect, the promise was followed by a year of lying and corruption. Three recent articles in Michigan newspapers illustrate why he, and others like him, get away with it.

On December 18, 2003 the Detroit Free Press carried an article by staff writer Dawson Bell entitled ATTORNEY GENERAL MIKE COX: ONE YEAR IN OFFICE: Honing political skill, hunting deadbeats. "Deadbeats" is a familiar reference to people who have not paid all the child support that has been ordered.

Anyone looking for an unbiased analysis would be in the wrong place. You only need look at the last paragraph, which reads: "But one thing we do know. He's easily the best Republican attorney general Michigan's had since Frank Millard."

Mr. Bell gives readers false hope with a section entitled; "Varied reviews," which then begins by saying "Virtually all observers agree there's not much downside for Cox on child support." That may be true, unless of course you happen to pay attention to the swollen throngs who see nothing but a downside to Cox on child support.

Mike Cox runs a private organization called PayKids that takes corporate donations from companies interested in child support collections. He has simultaneously been using his influence as Attorney General to lobby the state legislature to set up a system that would provide private child support collection agencies with lucrative state contracts.

On December 29th, The Macomb Daily published an article by Gitte Laasby, Capital News Service entitled; Cox zeros in on $7 billion in unpaid child support. The title copies misleading promotional information from the Cox website.

"Deadbeat dad" propaganda has been the subject of scientific investigation and the source of plenty of work by fathers' rights advocates. Although never supported by an ounce of honest evidence, proved and reproved false again and again, such bizarre claims are still common political fodder for dishonest politicians and their supporters.

One paragraph typifies the old-fashioned approach applied to Macomb County. "Deadbeat parents in Macomb County," the article claims, leaning heavily on the name-calling ethic, "owe about $17.3 million in estimated arrears at any given time, and Michigan is third-worst of all states for uncollected child support. Statewide, parents owe about $7 billion in back child support to 650,000 Michigan children and to the state."

By population, Michigan is the 8th largest state in the country; but adjusting for that, and reasonably for its claimed status as especially bad, one might expect at least $200 billion in past due child support owed nationwide. That's more than five times the total annual child support owed in the United States, including the amount "owed" (so to speak) by the 80-90 percent of fathers who pay regularly. The GAO has reported Office of Child Support Enforcement estimates that the total accumulated unpaid child support since the federal government first became involved in 1975 is less than $100 billion, and several analysts who have focused on child support (including me) believe that number is too high.

Claiming 650,000 children are owed child support in Michigan would imply around 25 million in the United States. With currently around 7 million (male and famale) custodial parents due child support nationwide (including those who receive regular payments), that would be around 3.5 per custodial parent; but if considering only those not receiving child support, the number might be somewhere closer to 25-30 children per custodial parent.

Obviously something is wrong with the statistics and something wrong with writers who repeat such dribble and newspapers that print it.

The article goes on to build up Mike Cox's image with an attack on noncustodial parents. Cox's press officer Mike Doyle complains that the public's misperception of the problem is partially to blame. "People kind of see deadbeat parents not as criminals, but people who are doing something unethical in not paying for their kids' support," he said.

'Another problem is that collecting support "wasn't a terribly high priority" to county prosecutors and the former attorney general,' parrots the article before a quote from the press officer drops entirely off the reality truck.

"For too long, these deadbeats have been able to avoid paying child support without too much fear of any kind of pursuit by law enforcement. The attorney general is trying to establish a credible threat that they will be prosecuted for a felony if they don't pay," according to Mr. Doyle.

It's one thing to claim such programs are "for the children" but entirely another to shape the promotional campaign for an audience under 5 years old. You can't expect people much older than that to be unaware of the huge and extremely expensive government program aimed at the so-called "deadbeat dads" that started more than a quarter century ago; the continuous threats, and overzealous enforcement efforts.

It might seem possible that too few people understand, because so few "news" outlets let on, that the program has not had any effect on compliance. That's because fathers (85 percent of the statistically understood noncustodial parent population are fathers) were paying well before the program began. The primary cause of non-payment is that a significant portion of parents who owe child support cannot pay as much as they have been ordered to pay for various reasons. One of them is that some of the so-called "deadbeats" are actually dead.

People get behind in every sort of payment, house payments, car payments; whatever payments there are, people get behind even when they don't want to. It's only when it's child support that corrupt public officials get away with treating it as a crime. What's worse is that the enforcement program shut down the legal mechanisms for obtaining proper adjustments to the amount owed when appropriate. The amounts owed as child support are extremely random, typically unrelated to children's needs and the parents' ability to provide. But that's just the circumstance that results in the appearance of need for enforcement, as the past-due amounts continue to rise.

Some payers encounter problems and later make up for it, or at least start paying again. Cox attributes every payment of a past-due amount to his personal efforts, a claim that could never stand up to scrutiny. Writer Gitte Laasby regurgitates without question: "With $1.4 million in overdue support payments collected so far, the attorney general has surpassed the $1 million mark he was shooting for by the end of this year."

It's not particularly interesting to know that some people are behind, but paying. That's happened every year for as long as there have been child support agreements and orders. All people like Cox need to know in order to meet or beat their own projections is what the statistical average is. It's likely that more than $1 million in past-due support would have been paid without Mike Cox or any special child support enforcement program at all for that matter. That's just part of the way things work out in real life.

On the same day that the Capital News Service article ran, The Macomb Daily also published an article entitled Macomb officials skeptical of child support crackdown by Chad Selweski, one of its own staff writers. At first the article seems to finally present a challenge to Cox's propaganda machine; but it stops short of the serious truth.

The article isn't so much about criticisms of Mr. Cox's involvement in child support as it is about his defense, repeating the same bizarre statistical misinformation as the Capital News Service article.

'Sheriff Mark Hackel sees the situation differently,' Mr. Selweski tells readers. 'He calls Cox's program a "duplication of effort" with no clear strategy. The state would reap more benefits, he said, if it helped fund enforcement programs in Macomb and other major counties.'

That's right. It turns out that local officials want the state's Attorney General to turn over more of the funding to them. Not a word from any real skeptics, who according to Michigan's newspapers don't exist.

Roger F. Gay
#6

You're going to love this one and I want everyone to never believe what anyone tells you, always ask to see the proof and follow up on every last detail, using every last breath that you have.

Case in point, in October, the Great State of Michigan grabbed our federal income tax refund for an arrearage.  Problem was, there was no arrearage, it had been paid in full 3 months earlier but of course, they never report the good news to the government.  They weren't current with their records for arrearage balances.

So I expected our child support coupons in November or December to show a decreased amount for the overpayment because of the income tax refund taken.  Nothing showed.  So I wrote them a letter saying WTF????

We got a form letter from the Great State Of Michigan:

December 10, 2003

Dear Sir or Madam,

Our office has received Federal Tax money from the IRS (YEAH...ALMOST THREE MONTHS AGO!).  Our records indicated your acount has support arrearages (REALLY ZERO NOW), service ($21) and processing fees ($43) that remain due.

With your permission (WHY DO YOU NEED MY PERMISSION????  YOU ALREADY SUCKED MY $1200 TAX REFUND!!!), we would like to pay off these debts and return the portion, if any, to you (REFUND ME $1146???).  Please respond by signing the bottom of the form and returning this letter to us by January 2, 2004.

Sincerely,

Oakland County Friend of the Court

THE FOLLOWING HAD TO BE SIGNED Permission:  I authorize Oakland County Friend of the Court to apply my tax money to the above identified account for any and all arrearages, service and processing fees due.

______________________


WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED if I hadn't written that letter asking them why they hadn't paid out that money?  And what would have happened if I didn't respond by Jan 2nd?  Would the money just evaporate???

Never mind the huge problem this caused with our estimated tax payments for the year 2003.  This was fun money for the refund.  We're self employed and it was to be applied towards the payment of our 2003 taxes.  So now I'm incurring huge underpayment and late penalties for being $1200 underpaid.

I think most normal people would assume that this would have been paid and not followed up on anything.  Don't assume nothin' because all it does is make an ASS out of U and ME.
#7

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-gran13.html

Let's hope Illinois is able to do the same for JLC.

****************

New law enables grandparents to file for visitation rights

August 13, 2004

BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff Reporter
Advertisement

Orbitz

Grandparents in Illinois have an explicit legal right to file for visitation rights to their grandchildren under a new law signed Thursday.

Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago), a co-sponsor of the bill, said Illinois was the only state without a grandparent visitation law.

"This law puts the best interest of children first and helps clear a path for grandparents to see their grandchildren,'' said Gov. Blagojevich in signing the measure.

According to Blagojevich's office, grandparents can now ask judges for visitation if the parent has made "an unreasonable denial of visitation'' and one of the following conditions exist:

* A parent is incompetent, deceased or has been sentenced to jail for more than one year.

* The parents are divorced or separated for three months and one parent does not object to visitation.

* The child is illegitimate, the parents are not living together and the grandparent is related to the mother.

* The grandparent is related to the father and paternity has been established.

Cullerton, who sponsored the bill with Rep. Patricia Reid Linder (R-Aurora), said the grandparent often is "the most stable influence in the child's life.''

According to the American Association of Retired Persons, traditionally American courts ruled that a child's mother and father could prevent either or both sets of grandparents from visiting the grandchildren.

In the 1970s, state legislatures began to pass grandparent visitation statutes, partly due to lobbying efforts of senior citizen groups.

Those laws came under greater scrutiny after a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision on a Washington state case that overturned broad child visitation rights for grandparents. That decision was based on lack of standards in the Washington state law.

Under the new Illinois law, standards are spelled out that will survive court tests, Blagojevich's office said.
#8
Illinois State Forum / Multi State Jurisdiction
Dec 11, 2003, 07:39:53 AM

Welcome Dean,

We reside in IL.  My husband's Ex wants to move to NY from MI.  The current jurisdiction is MI for child custody/support.  We're fighting move to NY but that's another story.

What happens down the road with regards to child support?  Would my husband's Ex have any success getting it moved to NY if she's allowed to permanently move there?

Naturally, we're concerned about which state is in our favor with regards to the child support calculation.  New York pays child support until 21 y.o. so that might be a huge motivator for his Ex to fight to move it to NY.

Also, is there a web site that you're aware of that compares the differences in the child support calculations between the various states so that we can do some research?
#9
My DH just renewed his professional license several weeks ago.  I did it for him online.  One of the questions was regards to child support.  If he had an arrearage, he could not have renewed his license.  Without his license, he could not work....period.

We don't have an arrearage but for grins and giggles, I called the License Renewal and they stated he would have to pay his entire arrearage to get his license renewed.  I created a scenario for them, stating the court was aware of the arrearage and his was current with his repayment plan.  Didn't matter that it was all he could afford, still had to pay the arrearage in full to get his license.

Thank God it wasn't applicable to us.

But this lien on arrearage, as many of you know, falls way beyond just professional licensing.  You can't get driver's licenses, license plates or your income tax refund.  Even if you're current on your arrearage repayment plan through the court, when the opportunity arises, you get everything taken from you.

Now this is where it gets interesting.....

Although my DH pays CS, he had an overpayment of over $5000 because of a retroactive filing.  In March 2004, he filed for a reduction.  Mom fought it to trial, the final order, entered in our favor was received last week.  So between child support and child care over the past 16 months, mom owes us $5000.

So we have to wait for repayment at $200/mo for the next two years of so.  I called the state.  There is no lien against this mom's income tax for our overpayment because she's the custodial parent.  Mom can still have her license renewed and the plates renewed on her car.  Mom can still get her teacher's license renewed.

The hypocrasy of this double standard has got to end.  How many noncustodial parents never receive their refund when they wait for it when their child turns 18?  Many states won't even let a NCP get their abatement from when the children were in their care until child support obligation is done.  Do you think these CP pay them back?  Without the same diligence in laws available for NCP like going after licenses and income tax refunds...of course not.
#10
This information can be found on this document

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Crc/crc2004.pdf

To recap, for 2004 the government says the costs for a single parent to raise one child is as follows.  This amount includes housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, education and a miscellaneous amount.



0-2 years old -                   $5,860

3-5 years old -                    $6,640

6-8 years old -                     $7,460

9-11 years old -                    $6,930

12-14 years old -                  $7,420

15-17 -                  $8,180


Now, before you compare your number, in theory, reduce the above amount by the % of the custodial parents salary compared to yours.  For example, if both you and your Ex make the exact same amount of money per year, you would reduce the above amount by 50%.  Compare that reduced amount by the amount you pay for child support (do not include work related, court ordered child care).  This above amount also includes medical!

In our instance, we are paying DOUBLE what the government says our portion is to raise my SD.

#11
Child Support Issues / Site for Dads in Michigan
Apr 01, 2005, 11:36:28 AM

Here's a great group if your jurisdiction is in Michigan

http://www.dadsofmichigan.org/phpbb2/
#12

 Are Child Support Levels Too High?

//www.hisside.com

According to economist R. Mark Rogers, "Child support guidelines currently in use by the U.S. states typically generate awards that are three to four times what they should be if based on economically sound cost tables and on a true equal duty of support standard for both parents" (emphasis added).

Rogers also believes that support levels have become so skewed in favor of custodial parents that even custodial parents with a substantially lesser income will still end up with a "significantly higher standard of living than the non-custodial parent." The situation is even more inequitable in cases where the custodial parent has a significantly higher income than the noncustodial.

Rogers of Guideline Economics believes that child support levels are too high in practically every U.S. state and has proposed a Cost Shares guideline which he says will remedy the problem. Debbie Kline is the Executive Director of the Association for Children for the Enforcement of Support, a nationwide organization which advocates higher child support levels and tougher child support enforcement. Mark and Debbie will join Glenn on His Side with Glenn Sacks on Sunday, December 12 at 5 PM PST/8 PM EST.

You can call the show at 1-800-439-4805.
#13

Featured speakers are to be an economist, who believes that the child support calculations are economically wrong and in some for instances 2 or 3 times higher than they should be. The opponent will be a woman's advocate who believes that child support calculations are not enough to support children and further, the child payments should not have to be substantiated to the NCP. Will post specifics later....

//www.hisside.com
#14

ATTENTION MICHIGAN CHILD SUPPORT PAYORS/RECEIPIENTS:

A major national press/media reporter is seeking to interview child support payors and recipients in Michigan who have documented proof that their child support payments have been lost, misapplied, etc., by the Friend of the Court (FOC) or State Disbursement Unit (SDU) resulting in financial hardships.

If you qualify, please respond (via email reply only) with the following information not later than Wednesday, June 9:

Payor & Recipient Name/addresses/phone numbers
Michigan County of jurisdiction
FOC Case#
Amount of error

Important...please do not respond if you are unable to verify your claim of errors with the appropriate documentation (copies required).  In such event, your case will not be used and valuable time would be wasted.  Forward this email as appropriate.

Thank you,

Murray Davis
Vice President
The National Family Justice Association
#15



Has anyone had success in having this reduced?  How did you write it up as to be taken seriously.

My husband just put in for an evaulation to reduce child support and child care. Support is what it is, based on the 1040.

My question is how to dispute child care? We want this amount reduced from $600/month to $150.  What's the best way to submit this on the questionnaire?

It's a bogus amount, birth mother pays to the child's grandmother, who they live with. When the child care was established, mom worked nights and it was for 32 hours. Now, mom works while child is in school full time, at the most 10 hours.  

If mom does not claim child care on her 1040; ergo causing grandma to be taxed on the income, can we have the Friend of the Court through out the amount altogether?  Mom refuses to reduce amount on her own, says it's what she pays her mom. It's not arms length.

Do we just submit a request to lower this amount based on change in circumstances? IE...mom worked 32 hours/week while child at home and now child only has day care for 10?  I know also to show the market rate for the area.
#16

           
http://www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0403/07/a01-84246.htm

Snags in state's $459 million system don't give dads credit, leave kids without money

By Gary Heinlein, and Kim Kozlowski / The Detroit News

John M. Galloway / Special to The Detroit News

Michigan's child support system

* Approximately $30 million in support is disbursed each week.

* Michigan collected $1.4 billion in child support last year, third highest among the 50 states. Michigan has the second largest support caseload in the nation.

* By changing to a centralized computer tracking system in October in compliance with a federal deadline, Michigan avoided $147.5 million in federal penalties.

Source: State of Michigan

WEBBERVILLE — A federally mandated $459 million record-keeping system, intended to correct Michigan's creaky, mistake-filled process for tracking payments to parents and their children, has instead caused a new wave of problems for those paying and receiving child support.

Rather than streamline services to 2.5 million adults and kids affected by nearly 800,000 child support orders, the new computer system has created errors and added headaches for parents and hard-pressed Friend of the Court agencies around the state.

The system, hastily installed in October to meet a federal deadline, may take years to fix, officials said.

Two years ago, a Detroit News investigation found that most of the agencies had too little staff and too much work. As a result, more than 400,000 children were getting none of the child support due them, and more than 600,000 custodial parents who were owed child support had been forced onto state assistance.

Since then, things haven't gotten better at Friend of the Court offices. State and local budget problems have resulted in hiring freezes, if not staff reductions.

The ongoing problems are making life more difficult for hundreds of parents, like Webberville resident Lara Vinluan, who depend on child support — not to mention those who are required to pay it and can face jail time if they don't.

<

Until the new system cranked up in October, child support payments of $341 flowed smoothly every two weeks from Ruben Davila's paychecks to Vinluan and their 3-year-old son Aidan. Afterward, the checks and amounts became sporadic.

Between October and February, the new system shorted them by $650 while continuing to deduct the proper amount from Davila's pay.

To make matters worse, Livingston County's Friend of the Court agency, where Vinluan's child support order is filed, seemed powerless to correct the problem. Local agencies have to rely on state computer technicians in Lansing to fix even the most elementary glitches.

"I contacted Livingston County many times, and the state many times, but they told me there was nothing they could do about it," said Vinluan, 34. Eventually, she received a check for $650, but that may not mean the problem has been fixed.

Vinluan and Davila say it appears the state's computer came up with the $650 check by deducting extra money from his paychecks. Further, the system now claims Davila, a Grosse Pointe Park resident also paying support for a child in Macomb County, is subject to three child support orders, rather than two, and is in arrears.

Such mixups have nearly doubled calls to Friend of the Court offices, said Jeff Albaugh, president of the Michigan Friend of the Court Association. An automated state phone system for child support clients is logging 230,000 calls a week.

More than 2,000 mistakes have cropped up since the system was activated, said Albaugh, head of Calhoun County's Friend of the Court office in Battle Creek. A task force has compiled a list of more than 60 corrections, some of them major, that programmers need to make.

"This system has the seeds of being a very good system, but a private business would have waited another year to implement it," Albaugh said.

Officials estimate it will take three years to meld data from the state's patchwork of 64 Friend of the Court offices and 83 county prosecutors into a smooth-running system.

Focus on certification

Michigan hurried to meet an Oct. 1 deadline and avoid $147.5 million in federal penalties. Failure would have resulted in an added penalty of $60 million. The federal government requires states to have automated child support systems linked to federal computers.

"The focus had been to get (federally) certified, so the blinders were put on and the (computer) vendor was told not to be distracted by anything, including user issues," Albaugh said. "Now problems are cropping up, creating more work rather than saving time."

Examples of problems abound.

Southgate parent Ken Machus Jr. had made about 10 trips in a year to Wayne County's Friend of the Court office at the Penobscot Building in Detroit, trying to clear up confusion over the $222.86 deducted weekly from his paychecks and sent to his ex-wife.

He's puzzled about the $38,000 he is listed as owing the state and his former wife, in addition to child support being deducted for a 17-year-old daughter of whom he's had legal custody for two years. More puzzling: His ex-wife also is supposed to be sending him $20 a week in support for the same daughter.

"When they switched to the computer, they sent me a letter saying it would be four to six months before my payments would be posted to my account, so I'm paying $222 a week and wondering where it's going," Machus said. "And I'm keeping very good records."

Staff is overburdened

Computer troubles only magnify tension in densely populated Wayne County, where nearly half the state's child support orders are lodged and an overburdened staff is too busy to answer phone calls.

But Wayne County Chief Judge Mary Beth Kelly, who's overseeing the agency, said the problems are being dealt with and the system promises to be a big help. In May, Wayne's office will expand with a 30-member call-in center staff, handling some of its 8,748 daily calls. The Wayne County Commission allocated $500,000 annually to fund it.

"There's no question the system works," Kelly said. "And the system has had profound benefits for Wayne County families. There's no question that with the system, more families have received more child support."

Marilyn Stephen, director of the state office of child support, acknowledged the changeover "has been a fairly bumpy ride," but said complaints have leveled off.

"A year from now, I think there will be significant improvement. Some of the larger issues will take more time."


Metro Detroit free-lance writer C. Lerner Rugenstein contributed to this report. You can reach Gary Heinlein at (517) 371-3660 or [email protected]
 
#17

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/g/gay/2004/gay010204.htm

Child Support Propaganda Haunts Michigan Papers

January 2, 2004


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Roger F. Gay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has been in office for one year. He promised to make child support collection his top priority. Just as knowledgeable observers would expect, the promise was followed by a year of lying and corruption. Three recent articles in Michigan newspapers illustrate why he, and others like him, get away with it.

On December 18, 2003 the Detroit Free Press carried an article by staff writer Dawson Bell entitled ATTORNEY GENERAL MIKE COX: ONE YEAR IN OFFICE: Honing political skill, hunting deadbeats. "Deadbeats" is a familiar reference to people who have not paid all the child support that has been ordered.

Anyone looking for an unbiased analysis would be in the wrong place. You only need look at the last paragraph, which reads: "But one thing we do know. He's easily the best Republican attorney general Michigan's had since Frank Millard."

Mr. Bell gives readers false hope with a section entitled; "Varied reviews," which then begins by saying "Virtually all observers agree there's not much downside for Cox on child support." That may be true, unless of course you happen to pay attention to the swollen throngs who see nothing but a downside to Cox on child support.

Mike Cox runs a private organization called PayKids that takes corporate donations from companies interested in child support collections. He has simultaneously been using his influence as Attorney General to lobby the state legislature to set up a system that would provide private child support collection agencies with lucrative state contracts.

On December 29th, The Macomb Daily published an article by Gitte Laasby, Capital News Service entitled; Cox zeros in on $7 billion in unpaid child support. The title copies misleading promotional information from the Cox website.

"Deadbeat dad" propaganda has been the subject of scientific investigation and the source of plenty of work by fathers' rights advocates. Although never supported by an ounce of honest evidence, proved and reproved false again and again, such bizarre claims are still common political fodder for dishonest politicians and their supporters.

One paragraph typifies the old-fashioned approach applied to Macomb County. "Deadbeat parents in Macomb County," the article claims, leaning heavily on the name-calling ethic, "owe about $17.3 million in estimated arrears at any given time, and Michigan is third-worst of all states for uncollected child support. Statewide, parents owe about $7 billion in back child support to 650,000 Michigan children and to the state."

By population, Michigan is the 8th largest state in the country; but adjusting for that, and reasonably for its claimed status as especially bad, one might expect at least $200 billion in past due child support owed nationwide. That's more than five times the total annual child support owed in the United States, including the amount "owed" (so to speak) by the 80-90 percent of fathers who pay regularly. The GAO has reported Office of Child Support Enforcement estimates that the total accumulated unpaid child support since the federal government first became involved in 1975 is less than $100 billion, and several analysts who have focused on child support (including me) believe that number is too high.

Claiming 650,000 children are owed child support in Michigan would imply around 25 million in the United States. With currently around 7 million (male and famale) custodial parents due child support nationwide (including those who receive regular payments), that would be around 3.5 per custodial parent; but if considering only those not receiving child support, the number might be somewhere closer to 25-30 children per custodial parent.

Obviously something is wrong with the statistics and something wrong with writers who repeat such dribble and newspapers that print it.

The article goes on to build up Mike Cox's image with an attack on noncustodial parents. Cox's press officer Mike Doyle complains that the public's misperception of the problem is partially to blame. "People kind of see deadbeat parents not as criminals, but people who are doing something unethical in not paying for their kids' support," he said.

'Another problem is that collecting support "wasn't a terribly high priority" to county prosecutors and the former attorney general,' parrots the article before a quote from the press officer drops entirely off the reality truck.

"For too long, these deadbeats have been able to avoid paying child support without too much fear of any kind of pursuit by law enforcement. The attorney general is trying to establish a credible threat that they will be prosecuted for a felony if they don't pay," according to Mr. Doyle.

It's one thing to claim such programs are "for the children" but entirely another to shape the promotional campaign for an audience under 5 years old. You can't expect people much older than that to be unaware of the huge and extremely expensive government program aimed at the so-called "deadbeat dads" that started more than a quarter century ago; the continuous threats, and overzealous enforcement efforts.

It might seem possible that too few people understand, because so few "news" outlets let on, that the program has not had any effect on compliance. That's because fathers (85 percent of the statistically understood noncustodial parent population are fathers) were paying well before the program began. The primary cause of non-payment is that a significant portion of parents who owe child support cannot pay as much as they have been ordered to pay for various reasons. One of them is that some of the so-called "deadbeats" are actually dead.

People get behind in every sort of payment, house payments, car payments; whatever payments there are, people get behind even when they don't want to. It's only when it's child support that corrupt public officials get away with treating it as a crime. What's worse is that the enforcement program shut down the legal mechanisms for obtaining proper adjustments to the amount owed when appropriate. The amounts owed as child support are extremely random, typically unrelated to children's needs and the parents' ability to provide. But that's just the circumstance that results in the appearance of need for enforcement, as the past-due amounts continue to rise.

Some payers encounter problems and later make up for it, or at least start paying again. Cox attributes every payment of a past-due amount to his personal efforts, a claim that could never stand up to scrutiny. Writer Gitte Laasby regurgitates without question: "With $1.4 million in overdue support payments collected so far, the attorney general has surpassed the $1 million mark he was shooting for by the end of this year."

It's not particularly interesting to know that some people are behind, but paying. That's happened every year for as long as there have been child support agreements and orders. All people like Cox need to know in order to meet or beat their own projections is what the statistical average is. It's likely that more than $1 million in past-due support would have been paid without Mike Cox or any special child support enforcement program at all for that matter. That's just part of the way things work out in real life.

On the same day that the Capital News Service article ran, The Macomb Daily also published an article entitled Macomb officials skeptical of child support crackdown by Chad Selweski, one of its own staff writers. At first the article seems to finally present a challenge to Cox's propaganda machine; but it stops short of the serious truth.

The article isn't so much about criticisms of Mr. Cox's involvement in child support as it is about his defense, repeating the same bizarre statistical misinformation as the Capital News Service article.

'Sheriff Mark Hackel sees the situation differently,' Mr. Selweski tells readers. 'He calls Cox's program a "duplication of effort" with no clear strategy. The state would reap more benefits, he said, if it helped fund enforcement programs in Macomb and other major counties.'

That's right. It turns out that local officials want the state's Attorney General to turn over more of the funding to them. Not a word from any real skeptics, who according to Michigan's newspapers don't exist.

Roger F. Gay
#18
You're going to love this one and I want everyone to never believe what anyone tells you, always ask to see the proof and follow up on every last detail, using every last breath that you have.

Case in point, in October, the Great State of Michigan grabbed our federal income tax refund for an arrearage.  Problem was, there was no arrearage, it had been paid in full 3 months earlier but of course, they never report the good news to the government.  They weren't current with their records for arrearage balances.

So I expected our child support coupons in November or December to show a decreased amount for the overpayment because of the income tax refund taken.  Nothing showed.  So I wrote them a letter saying WTF????

We got a form letter from the Great State Of Michigan:

December 10, 2003

Dear Sir or Madam,

Our office has received Federal Tax money from the IRS (YEAH...ALMOST THREE MONTHS AGO!).  Our records indicated your acount has support arrearages (REALLY ZERO NOW), service ($21) and processing fees ($43) that remain due.

With your permission (WHY DO YOU NEED MY PERMISSION????  YOU ALREADY SUCKED MY $1200 TAX REFUND!!!), we would like to pay off these debts and return the portion, if any, to you (REFUND ME $1146???).  Please respond by signing the bottom of the form and returning this letter to us by January 2, 2004.

Sincerely,

Oakland County Friend of the Court

THE FOLLOWING HAD TO BE SIGNED Permission:  I authorize Oakland County Friend of the Court to apply my tax money to the above identified account for any and all arrearages, service and processing fees due.

______________________


WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED if I hadn't written that letter asking them why they hadn't paid out that money?  And what would have happened if I didn't respond by Jan 2nd?  Would the money just evaporate???

Never mind the huge problem this caused with our estimated tax payments for the year 2003.  This was NOT fun money for the refund.  We're self employed and it was to be applied towards the payment of our 2003 taxes.  So now I'm incurring huge underpayment and late penalties for being $1200 underpaid.

I think most normal people would assume that this would have been paid and not followed up on anything.  Don't assume nothin' because all it does is make an ASS out of U and ME.
#19

   

I once read that often a child is abused by the custodial parent because the child resembles the Ex spouse. This resemblance causes the custodial parent to be verbally and physically abusive to the child.

Does anyone has info on this or can find info on this? I'm having problems googling it and need the info by Tuesday to finish up our change of custody motion.

Thanks in advance for your help
#20
Shrink Rap / How do we manage this?
Jan 12, 2004, 08:59:03 AM

It's the same old story I've seen many times here. I have a beautiful, 6 y.o. SD. SD lives in NY, we're in IL. We see her two weekends a month plus extended time at the holidays, she flies in.

SD is a sensitive and emotional child. She is very bonded with us. It's my belief that the child is emotionally and at times, physically abused by her mom. The BM is emotionally checked out on this child. The child is basically left in the care of maternal grandparents, who they live with. Of course, whenever we take her to court, she's mother of the year.

The child does not want to go home at the end of visitation. She hates her school, last week she faked being sick for four days. She says she's bored and lonely at home.

To challenge custody would bankrupt us. We're in the hole every month just paying child support and property settlement from the divorce. I know challenging custody would entail psych eval's, witnesses and a long court experience. BM would fight us tooth and nail.

It's just devastating to listen to her and worse to have to send her back. How do you get through this?
#21
I am a noncustodial father, involved in a change of custody motion based on child abuse of my daughter by her custodial mother.  The judge ordered a custody evaluation in the state of MI on 9/7.  Mom and child live in NY.  I live in IL.  Mom has sole legal and physical custody of 8 year old daugther although I have the right to make routine and emergency decisions while the child is his care and the parties must consult on all major decisions.

The parties entered into an agreement in March 2004 to allow the mom and child to relocate from MI to NY (they temporarily moved in Nov 2003).  In exchange for the relocation, the parties agreed that the state of MI would retain jurisdiction regarding child custody until August 2007.  This was done primarily because the mom had a history of noncompliance with court orders when she lived in MI and tended to be litigious.  Retaining jurisdiction in a "neutral" state would make it equally inconvenient for all involved and in hopes that the parties would focus on coparenting rather than litigation to resolve their issues.

Mom again "allegedly" abused the child on 9/9 leaving her bruised.  I took my daughter to police, ER and DCFS to file reports.  I kept child until court ordered her returned to mom on 9/16 citing that because child recants child abuse allegations when she's in mom's care (imagine that) there's not enough proof that mom may in fact be abusing her (3rd instance of bruising child's back since May 2005) and that the child should remain in mom's "stable" environment until the custody evaluation is completed.

Further, the judge told the parties she would like to see legal arguments for moving the jurisdiction for this child custody trial to New York.

I feel the judge is trying to duck this trial altogether by kicking it to NY.  MI retaining the jurisdiction in this matter until August 2007 was a deal breaker in the mediation as far as allowing the mom and child to move to New York.  I don't think that this was judicially responsible of the judge.  Since our divorce was final in September 2002, we have consistantly been in front of this judge:

Active case, continually in front of this Michigan judge, who is still most familiar with it.  Although none of the parties live in Michigan, based on the court activity, the forum does not appear to be inconvenient for any of the parties based on the activity.

Sep 2002    Divorce final
Dec 2002    Father filed motion to see Alicia for Christmas holiday, I had not seen my daughter for Christmas since 1999
Jun 2003    Mother files motion to move to NY from MI
Aug 2003    Mother's motion to move to NY denied
Oct 2003    Mother allowed to move temporarily to NY
Jan 2004    Parties agree to move with conditions, including keeping the jurisdiction in MI until 8/2007
Mar 2004    Parties sign court order for move with conditions
Mar 2004    One of the above conditions of new agreement, to re-evaluate child support motion is filed
Sep 2004    FOC gives recommendation on support
Oct 2004    Mother disagrees with FOC recommendation, files motion
Feb 2005   Trial in front of judge on child support
Apr 2005    Judge gives opinion on child support reduction
Jul 2005    Judgesigns order for modification of child support
Aug 2005    Judgeorders Illinois court not to hear emergency motion for custody, that Michigan has jurisdiction
Sep 2005   Parties agree to custody evaluation, Judge signs order
Sep 2005   Judge denies motion for temporary custody with noncustodial father


It should also be mentioned on 8/19 that I attempted to retain the child in IL because of abuse on 8/5 by filing for emergency jurisdiction in Illinois because of child being in imminent danger by being returned to the mom.  The MI judge phoned the IL judge and told him that MI was the jurisdiction for all matters in this case and she would hear any motions so IL declined based on this.  I filed in MI on 9/7, temporary custody with me was denied but a custody evaluation in MI was ordered.

The language regarding the jursidiction is as follows on the original court order, allowing the mom to move from Michigan to New York:

RETENTION OF JURISDICTION

It is further ordered and adjudged that this Honorable Court and the parties have agreed that at a minimum the Court shall retain jurisdiction in this matter until such time as the minor child attains the age of ten (10) years or until further order of the Court.  This provision shall apply even in the event that the State of New York becomes "the home state" under UCCJEA.  It is the parties' intent and the Order of this Court that Michigan shall retain exclusive jurisdiction regarding all issues regarding the minor child, including, but not limited to, custody, parenting time, and support issues.  The reason for this retention of jurisdiction provision is because this Judge, her family court worker and the parenting time coordinator are familiar with the parties, the minor child and the facts of this case.

Is it possible that this stipulation can be set aside so easily by the judge?  Is this proper?  How can we defend our motion?
#22


   1.    Since the entry of the Judgment of Divorce dated Sept 2002, there has been a substantial change in circumstances that warrants a change in the custody of the minor child age 8.

      2.    The divorce Judgment granted the Mother sole legal and physical custody.

      3.    On or about August XX, 2005, the Mother was properly served with a motion by the Father for a change in physical and legal custody of minor child.

      4.    Among other issues, the motion for a change in physical and legal custody of minor child is based on physical and emotional abuse the minor child suffers at the hand of the Mother (2 EXHIBITS - Photos of multiple bruises on back).  The abuse occurs in the home of the maternal grandparents where the minor child resides with her Mother.

      5.    Additionally, the motion for a change in physical and legal custody of minor child was brought based on the minor child witnessing verbal and emotional of abuse of the maternal grandparents by the minor child's own Mother.

      6.    The Father further warrants that the current residence of the minor child is not a safe harbor, given that the maternal grandparents have witnessed this abuse and not intervened to stop the verbal, emotional and physical abuse of the minor child.  

      7.    The current residence of the minor child is an unsafe, unsupervised atmosphere that not only promotes the domestic violence of the minor child and the maternal grandparents at the hand of the child's own Mother.  

      8.    The court should appreciate that it took tremendous courage for the minor child to come forward and tell her Father of the abuse the minor child is suffering at the hands of her own Mother.

      9.   The Father believes it is his duty to protect the minor child from ongoing abuse.

      10.   The Father believes and fears that the abuse of the minor child will only escalate now that the Mother has become aware of the minor child has come forward with the truth of her abuse.  The Motion for a change in physical custody of the child was served on the Mother while the child was in the safe harbor of her Father.

   11.   The Father fears for the minor child's health, well being, safety and life.

   12.   The Father believes that the maternal grandparents have created an environment in which the Mother freely and continually abuses her own child and the grandparents witness and allow this abuse.  The maternal Grandmother is the child's babysitter and caregiver and has done nothing and not reported or stopped the abuse of the child.

   13.   The Father believes the only way he can protect the minor child is if the court immediately places the child in the Father's physical custody.

   14.   Under the current summer visitation schedule, the child is due to be returned to the Mother on August XX, 2005.

      THEREFORE, Defendant requests this court grant him temporary physical custody of the minor child.  This placement should include the legal right for the Father to act as Custodial Parent and Guardian of the minor child and accordingly, allow the child to attend grammar school in the Father's residence district.  Further, the Mother's visitation should be temporarily suspended until arrangements can be made for supervised visitations to be put into place to protect the minor child.  The Father also asks for the court to suspend the payment of child support and childcare to the Mother until a final court decision is made.
#23
Dear Socrateaser / What would you advise?
Jun 23, 2005, 01:46:14 PM

      

Dilemma involves my 7 y.o. SD. She's miserable with mom, wants to live with us. Visitation over Father's Day yielded bruises all over her back.   SD told DH after he asked her what was new, she blurted out she got bruises from climbing a rock wall. The next day I saw them, SD told me a friend pushed her against a wall. Gentle coaxing and it finally came out that BM regularly hits her.

Our story is typical. BM got sole custody after false allegations of DV and her taking the child away from DH under that guise and denying visitation for 18 mos. Divorce final, she won. Voila!!!! No further complaints against DH, total compliance with visitations.

That was 5 years ago. Since then, we negotiated a 'further' moveaway and got JC rights (routune decisions when child's in our care, parents must consult on major decisions) but not the title. Were able to get SD medical care at eye doctor and dentist she's never had. That was two years ago and we've provided that care. SD lives in NY, we're in IL, jurisdiction is MI. SD flies to us 2 weekends a month for visitation, rotate holidays, 6 weeks in summer.

BM fails at her custodial duties. Leaves SD constantly in care of drunk grandmother while BM runs around with her boyfriend/fiance of 3 months (2nd fiance in 9 mos), takes grad classes, works out, shops. SD is lonely and bored at mom's.

Now admittedly by child, she's abused. Child is TERRIFIED of mother's wrath. If I paint her nails her favorite neon green, child peels off the nails polish on Sunday before she goes home, fearful that her mother will get mad at the color. Stuff like that.

Initial conversations with atty says well...you have the right to make routine decisions while the child is in your care, is counseling a routine decision? I don't think so, my DH would be pissed if BM took her to counseling without his consultation.

Further, I'm afraid if we just do that, BM will say "see....DH is still controlling and abusive towards me" and this would blow up with us at a custody motion for not notifying her. Although, BM would never agree to it in the first place because she would be found out.  If counseling was in NY, BM would sabotage it.

So what's the strategy here? Do we just wait until the child is in our care and take her in for a psych eval to see if she exhibits signs of abuse or trauma?  In a perfect world, we would like physicial custody and for mom to get into parenting/anger management classes and for maternal grandmother to get into substance evaluation....not TOO big a wish list eh?

If you look at this child wrong, she bursts into tears.  She has no confidence, no self esteem.  There's no way the child would go to a teacher or social worker about the abuse at home.  She's too terrified of mom.  If DCFS showed up at the maternal grandparents home where mom and child live, it looks like the Cleavers live there.  Million dollar home, BMW's in the driveway, designer clothes on mom and grandma.  

Any thoughts or other ideas???
#24
Dear Socrateaser / Going to court on Friday
Feb 24, 2005, 08:08:40 AM

Michigan is the jurisdiction.  We have a trial for a reduction in child support.  My husband's ex wife has been less that cooperative.  

- Since October, she's refused to name the college she attends.  
- Since October, she's only supplied half of her financial information.
- She claimed to work 9.25 hours a day, got her job subpoena'd info, she's only work 7 hours a day.
- She claims to work all year round, job subpoena'd info confirmed she's only working 10 months out of the year, as a teacher.

Based on the evidence that's she lying and further, she's refused to supply info for an interrogatory and from a court order, can we get a direct judgment in our favor from the judge, based on her lack of cooperation?
#25
Dear Socrateaser / Obtaining a subpoena
Oct 30, 2004, 06:38:55 AM

Does there need to be an outstanding motion in order to issue a subpoena to obtain evidence?

Background - Challenging custody, one the factors, lack of religious training by CP.  Can we subpoena the church to prove child in not enrolled in catechism class in order to attach the response from the Church in our initial motion?
#26
Dear Socrateaser / Input for custody motion....
Dec 11, 2003, 07:31:43 AM

Dear Soc,

We're in the midst of challenging custody/move away.  Long story. ANYWAY

Could you please give me some issues to incorporate into our motion to change custody from sole legal (BM of course) to joint legal?  We're not challenging physical custody....at this time....just trying to legally re-establish our parental rights.  Taking baby steps.

Typical story seen on this board a million time, BM at divorce settlement falsely accuses DH of domestic violence (no proof, no incidents during the 3 year separation).  BM claims she needs sole legal custody because she fears for her life and she cannot co-parent with BF because they never agree on anything in regards to the child (this was never a problem when they were married).  Of course, there was restricted access to child during separation by BM.

There are no major notables with child in regards to school or health.  It's difficult to come up with points for the motion that don't also address physical custody.

Would be eternally grateful for any ideas or thoughts.

THANKS!
#27
Dear Socrateaser / How do we thank SOC?
Dec 03, 2003, 09:49:57 AM

Dear Soc,

You've saved my a$$ three times now.  You are the best and given the upcoming holidays, I'd like to send you a token of my appreciation.

I've been coming to SPARC for about a year now.  What's your background, what's your history, why are you involved in SPARC?

I hope that everyone else you've helped feels the same way that I do.

My regards, sincere thanks and undying gratitude,

Joni
#28
Dear Socrateaser / Breaching attorney privilege??
Dec 01, 2003, 08:07:22 PM

Hello Soc,

I'm putting together a collaterol evidence file for upcoming psych evals.  I'm thinking about including some letters from our prior attorney which recapped conversations with my husband's Ex's attorney and the such.  

They are fairly broad letters but are of value because they show his Ex's attitude in court, frame of mind, judge's impatience with her.  They don't appear to compromise any privilege.

If I include 2/3 of these letters, would I open Pandora's box and have to produce all attorney correspondence?

#29

   
Divorce Drops, Along With Marriage
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

(July 18) -- Divorce is on the decline in the USA, but a report to be released today suggests that may be due more to an increase in people living together than to more lasting marriages.
      
Couples who once might have wed and then divorced now are not marrying at all, according to The State of our Unions 2005. The annual report, which analyzes Census and other data, is issued by the National Marriage Project at New Jersey's Rutgers University.

The U.S. divorce rate is 17.7 per 1,000 married women, down from 22.6 in 1980. The marriage rate is also on a steady decline: a 50% drop since 1970 from 76.5 per 1,000 unmarried women to 39.9, says the report, whose calculations are based on an internationally used measurement.

"Cohabitation is here to stay," says David Popenoe, a Rutgers sociology professor and report co-author. "I don't think it's good news, especially for children," he says. "As society shifts from marriage to cohabitation - which is what's happening - you have an increase in family instability."

Cohabiting couples have twice the breakup rate of married couples, the report's authors say. And in the USA, 40% bring kids into these often-shaky live-in relationships.

"It is important now to think beyond the divorce rate to other kinds of couple unions and look at how stable they are," says Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, a social historian and report co-author.

"It's a pretty short period of time for that change (cohabitation) to have occurred and to have taken hold in the way it has," she says.

In the USA, 8.1% of coupled households are made up of unmarried, heterosexual partners. Although many European countries have higher cohabitation rates, divorce rates in those countries are lower, and more children grow up with both biological parents, even though the parents may not be married, Popenoe says.

The USA has the lowest percentage among Western nations of children who grow up with both biological parents, 63%, the report says.

"The United States has the weakest families in the Western world because we have the highest divorce rate and the highest rate of solo parenting," Popenoe says.
#30

http://www.ntu.org/main/press_release_printable.php?PressID=628&org_name=NTUF

One Hand in Your Pocket: How Kerry's Campaign Pledges Stand to Cost Taxpayers Billions
NTUF Policy Paper 153

How much of your hard-earned money will you get to keep? That issue, fundamental to many Americans this campaign season, has become the focus of the Presidential race. The Bush campaign accuses John Kerry of hitting America's families where it hurts the most: squarely in the pocketbook. Drawing heavily from the publicly-released National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) study, "The Return of Fuzzy Math and Risky Schemes: How Presidential Hopefuls Would Deepen Deficits," the Bush campaign claimed John Kerry's new spending proposals would exceed $195 billion per year.[1]

Independent estimates included in this policy paper indicate that the Bush analysis of Kerry's agenda costs may actually be understated. Even after over $30 billion in proposed savings, John Kerry plans to introduce over $226 billion in new spending -- in his first year alone.

Unfortunately, Kerry's spending blueprint may not be the only thing the Bush campaign is understating. Lost among Bush's attack on Kerry's plans for costly programs is the President's own disturbing record on spending, which includes a 29 percent increase in the size of the federal budget during his first term.[2]

For his part, Kerry retaliated with an April 7th speech portraying himself as a fiscal conservative, announcing plans to cut the deficit in half in four years while "paying for" every program proposed without increasing the debt. This seemingly laudable goal is actually quite unexceptional -- slashing the deficit by half would allow the federal government to spend $260.37 billion more than it takes in by FY 2009 (and seemingly as much as it wants until then). Yet, Kerry's proposals increase spending by a cumulative $621.76 billion over a four-year Presidential term. That translates to an average increased tax burden of $6,066 for every person paying federal taxes in America over Kerry's first term.[3]

Voters faced with a constant stream of rhetoric, crosstalk, and campaign promises remain frustrated in their attempts to find answers to questions concerning how the Democratic nominee in this year's race for the White House plans to spend American tax dollars. This policy paper addresses those questions by systematically examining John Kerry's agenda, using neutral techniques to assign a running cost or savings tally to each cost-related proposal publicly offered by Sen. Kerry.

Highlights of this NTUF study include:

A projected $226.125 billion increase in spending -- in the first year of a Kerry Presidency alone.
A projected $734.62 billion increase in the national debt over five years.
Nearly $115 billion in social welfare, foreign aid, energy, and environmental handouts over a first Kerry term.[4]
Kerry the Fiscal Conservative?

In his April 7th speech at Georgetown University, John Kerry set forth the promise to "impose spending restraints so that no one can propose or pass a new program without a way to pay for it."[5] In addition to this "pay-as-you-go" approach, the Senator calls for a spending cap to ensure that federal spending does not exceed inflation. Unfortunately, Kerry exempts a series of major discretionary categories -- including military and homeland defense, education, and health care -- from his so-called "strong" spending cap, not to mention mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Since beginning his Presidential bid, Kerry has announced a total of five cost-saving policy ideas. These are:

Ending subsidies to high-income corporate farmers.
Reducing federal government administrative costs by five percent.
Terminating 100,000 federal contracting jobs.
Trimming federal energy use by 20 percent.
Eliminating the sale of public mineral rights at $5 per acre.
Additionally, Kerry supports the creation of a Corporate Subsidy Reform Commission to recommend cuts to corporate welfare and submit them to Congress. The establishment of this Commission requires $4 million in initial operating outlays; however, the ultimate aim of the Commission would be to reduce corporate subsidies by billions of dollars.

Most of these cost-savings plans, while commendable in theory, are questionable in fact. For example, in the same speech that he professed "a strategy to create 10 million new jobs," John Kerry proposed firing 100,000 federal contractors. While doing so would trim nearly $6 billion from the federal budget, Kerry makes no promises that the contractors would not simply be replaced by federal workers (at a greater cost to taxpayers, given the comparatively lavish benefits federal employees enjoy).

The plan to "streamline government agencies and reduce out-of-control administrative costs by five percent" is a respectable goal, to be sure. Kerry remains vague, however, as to exactly what he includes in the definition of administrative costs. Theoretically, "administrative costs" could range from trucks to tape dispensers, and include the salaries of thousands upon thousands of employees. Further complicating the proposal is the lack of a reliable cost estimate for annual federal administrative expenses.

Sen. Kerry also remains ambiguous on his plans to reduce federal energy usage by 20 percent. Undoubtedly, reaching this goal would require significant initial expenditures in everything from hybrid vehicles to energy efficient long-life light bulbs, not to mention the costly prospect of re-insulating federal buildings and outfitting them with more efficient heating and cooling systems. Even with extensive concentration paid to the 20 percent reduction goal, it would likely take years to recoup the expenditures for the necessary energy saving devices and procedures.

In addition to these questionable "cuts," Kerry also supports delaying the 2005 round of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program. BRAC calls for an orderly and measured elimination of excess physical military capacity, "which diverts scarce resources from defense capability," by Congress and the military.[6] Recurring annual reductions created by earlier rounds of BRAC already save taxpayers $7 billion yearly.[7] Anticipated savings created by the 2005 BRAC would amount to an additional $6 billion annually.[8] Since this round of BRAC is set to occur in 2005, the loss of savings is not included among estimates calculated for this policy paper. However, BRAC represents a previously successful and potentially critical area of savings for the federal government that Kerry appears to shun.

During the same speech at Georgetown, Sen. Kerry claimed that "Americans can trust" his vow of fiscal responsibility because, he has "a voting record that, on the most critical budget votes of the last 20 years, helped balance our budget and pay down our debt." But NTUF's VoteTally and BillTally historical data present a different picture. For example, no other Senator proposed more new federal spending during the 106th Congress than John Kerry. And from 1997-2002, Sen. Kerry voted to increase federal spending by a cumulative total of $731 billion. During the current 108th Congress, Kerry's spending has reached new heights. In 2003, Kerry has already sponsored or co-sponsored $182 billion worth of new federal legislation.[9]

As Appendix A of this policy paper indicates, since announcing his candidacy John Kerry has offered 70 policy proposals affecting federal outlays, only five of which would decrease government spending. Overall, Sen. Kerry proposes spending $770.6 billion over five years to fund his projects, while suggesting just $35.99 billion in budget cuts. This leaves $734.62 billion unaccounted for and presumably passed on to American taxpayers in the form of increased taxes or a suffocating debt. The following table illustrates Kerry's questionable commitment to cutting spending using first-year numbers found in Appendix A.

Table 1. First Year Spending and Savings Policies Proposed by John Kerry

Impact on Federal Budgetary Outlays
 Number of Policies Proposed
 Cost of Policies Proposed
(in billions)
 
Spending      Savings       Total
 65                   5              70
 $256.28          $30.16      $226.12
 

If John Kerry were indeed to "pay for" every program he has proposed as a Presidential candidate, as he promised in the April 7th speech at Georgetown, taxpayers in the U.S. would face an average additional $2,206 apiece in taxes in the first year of a Kerry presidency alone.[10] That astounding number is sure to grow as nearly six months (and likely dozens of campaign promises) remain before Election Day.

The Kerry Platform

John Kerry's policy platform includes 70 proposals addressing issues from renewable energy to AIDS research, from Head Start to hate crimes. The Appendix of this study includes an item-by-item inventory of each budget-altering policy proposed by John Kerry.

The cost or savings of each item in the Appendix is estimated using a variety of sources, most notably the Kerry campaign's own budgetary projections and the National Taxpayers Union Foundation's BillTally analysis. BillTally is a computerized accounting system that annually tabulates the cost of every piece of legislation introduced in Congress with a net annual budgetary impact of $1 million or more.[11] In order to offer Sen. Kerry the most favorable interpretation possible, NTUF applied the lowest cost estimate for spending proposals and the highest estimate for savings proposals whenever several estimates existed.

Each of John Kerry's proposals fits in one of 15 categories. The categories range in numbers of proposals from one (Agriculture/Rural and International Aid) to 19 (Education) and range in budgetary effect from a $165 million savings to a cost of nearly $74 billion. The following chart has a complete breakdown of those 15 categories and the cost and savings proposed by Sen. Kerry for each category.

Table 2. Kerry Spending and Savings Estimates by Category, in millions

Category                  Spending             Savings          Total

 
Agriculture/Rural           $0                    -$165         -$165
 
Civil Rights                   $115                    $0            $115
 
Economy                   $25,050            -$22,660       $2,390
 
Education                  $74,883                   $0        $74,883
 
Employment               $17,912              -$5,980     $11,932
 
Energy                     $4,000                 -$1,250      $2,750
 
Environment                  $893                 -$104        $789
 
Health Care               $71,120                   $0        $71,120
 
Homeland Security      $7,004                    $0         $7,004
 
Housing                       $63                        $0          $63
 
Infrastructure             $31,177                  $0         $31,177
 
International Aid          $7,250                   $0         $7,250
 
Justice                         $7                         $0             $7
 
Military/Veterans        $16,810                   $0           $16,810
 
Science/Technology   Unknown                  $0         Unknown
 
Overall Total:            $256,284           -$30,159      $226,125[12]
 

In order to examine John Kerry's policy proposals in greater depth, the following section clusters the Appendix's 15 policy categories into five headings (health care, education, military/homeland security, social/economic/environmental programs, infrastructure) to expose some of the more interesting and most costly of Sen. Kerry's policy proposals. The following graph compares those five headings and the overall cost of Sen. Kerry's proposals for each category.



Education

John Kerry's most expensive policy area by nearly $4 billion, education tops out at over $74.88 billion in first-year costs and nearly $184 billion over five years. Thirty-three percent of the Senator's one-year proposed spending goes to satisfy Kerry's 19 separate education policy proposals. Higher education incentive programs such as refundable tuition credits and increases in the Pell Grant program cost upwards of $12 billion. The bill for John Kerry's child care proposals, including higher funding of the Head Start program and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, totals $22.32 billion. School renovation and modernization proposals (even excluding schools in the Bureau of Indian Affairs System) tack another $24.8 billion onto the education tab.

Health Care

The most often-questioned and hotly-debated aspect of the Kerry platform is also its most expensive single agenda item within a policy category: the Kerry health care plan. For the sake of consistency, this study utilizes the updated cost estimates proposed by former Clinton Administration economist Ken Thorpe, the source of the original estimate employed in the NTUF Democratic Presidential candidate cost analysis study from January 2004. Thorpe initially pegged the cost of Kerry's health care plan at $895 billion over 10 years. That estimate has since been lowered to reflect potential savings resulting in early prevention programs and disease management efforts. Thorpe's new estimate stands at $653 billion over a decade.

Several observers, including Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA), Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute, and John Goodman, President of the National Center for Policy Analysis, claim the new Thorpe numbers substantially overestimate the savings in the Kerry health care proposal. In fact, Thomas, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, alleges Kerry's plan would top $1 trillion over a 10-year span.[13] If the Kerry health care proposal actually proved to be as costly as Thomas projects, the $347 billion difference between Ken Thorpe's reduced estimate and Rep. Thomas's estimate will cost the average American taxpayer over $3,385.

In addition to his health care plan, Sen. Kerry offers $5.82 billion in other first-year health-related spending. Included in the price tag are $645 million in AIDS-related funding, $3.4 billion in health care services to the Native American community, and $1.27 billion to restore health care benefits to legal immigrants. Rounding out the costs are two drug treatment programs that tally a combined $505 million per year.

Infrastructure

Over 99.4 percent of the $31.18 billion cost of John Kerry's infrastructure plan results from a pledge to restore highway cuts made by the Bush Administration last year.

Besides the $31 billion in restored highway funding, Kerry also calls for the creation of high-speed rail services as well as for increased funding to enhance transportation services for the disabled and disadvantaged.

Military/Homeland Security

John Kerry plans to introduce $23.81 billion in new spending for anti-terrorism and other military efforts. Of that total, over half -- $12.01 billion -- goes toward veterans health care and other military benefits. Just over 20 percent of the category total goes to address homeland security issues. This includes a $5 billion port security plan to screen all containers that enter the United States. The remaining funds provide more policing and firefighting efforts and add 40,000 active-duty Army troops to the American forces. If the troop increase stands through the remainder of the decade, as Kerry suggests, it will be at a cost of $24 billion.

Social, Economic, and Environmental Programs[14]


In an apparent attempt to appeal to numerous constituencies, Kerry offers cost-incurring policy plans that benefit, among others, felons, gays and lesbians, Native Americans, women, small business owners, the unemployed, carmakers, coal producers, and endangered species. Kerry's plan for employment, for example, offers $12 million to close the gender gap in pay, $800 million to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act, and over $17 billion in new unemployment benefits.

Environmentalists have reason to be happy with $893 million in new spending on environmental conservation and protection. A plan to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, at a $586 million increase over the current baseline, is responsible for the majority of environment-related costs. Funding inner city parks, increasing the Conservation Reserve Program's annual budget, boosting funding for endangered species conservation, and cleaning up Superfund sites all consume the remainder.

Environmental overtones run throughout John Kerry's energy programs as well. These programs include a combined $20 billion sum over five years for clean coal technology, energy efficient vehicles, and renewable energy. On the civil rights front, Sen. Kerry aims to provide equal justice for victims of hate crimes -- at a $110 million cost to taxpayers -- and a $2 million plan to restore voting rights to felons. Other Kerry plans include $63 million earmarked for housing programs for Native Americans and AIDS patients, $7 million for Native American law enforcement and tribal courts, and a $7.25 billion yearly contribution to international AIDS treatment and prevention.

Conclusion

For overtaxed and deficit-weary Americans, the future prospects for federal spending are, at a minimum, uncertain. In his first term, George W. Bush repeatedly failed to adequately trim the pork from an ever-fattening federal budget. Bush's opponent John Kerry proposes to submerge America even deeper into a sea of spending. Despite his recent attempt to outflank Bush on the deficit issue and portray himself as the more "fiscally responsible" candidate, the data behind Kerry's rhetoric tell a different story. Enactment of Kerry's "revised" spending agenda in its entirety would still mean higher taxes, a larger national debt, or likely both. Kerry's proposed spending caps, meant to convince Americans that he would usher in a new era of austerity, are actually so porous as to be no more effective than the restraints George W. Bush has sought.

In the final analysis, the "winner" of the 2004 election is likely to be the federal deficit -- leaving taxpayers with a landslide loss of their economic freedom.

About the Author

Drew Johnson is a Policy Analyst with National Taxpayers Union Foundation. He is also the author of NTUF Policy Paper 148, The Return of Fuzzy Math and Risky Schemes: How Presidential Hopefuls Would Deepen Deficits, published in January 2004.


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[1] //www.ntu.org/main/press_papers.php? PressID=548&org_name=NTUF

[2] //www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pdf/ hist.pdf

[3] Based on 102.5 million federal tax filers whose income tax returns showed a positive tax liability as reported by the IRS Statistics Of Income (SOI) division, 2001.

[4] $114.719 billion (includes proposed new spending amounts in Civil Rights, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Housing, International Aid, and Justice and Law Enforcement categories in Appendix A).

[5] //www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/ spc_2004_0407.html

[6] //www.defenselink.mil/brac/

[7] //www.defenselink.mil/brac/02faqs.htm#15

[8] //www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/ gessing200405270809.asp

[9] //www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=30

[10] Based on 102.5 million federal tax filers whose income tax returns showed a positive tax liability.

[11] The most recent BillTally report, "The First Session of the 108th Congress: Operation Enduring Deficits -- Marshalling Taxpayer Dollars Into New Programs," is available at: //www.ntu.org/main/press_papers.php? PressID=581&org_name=NTUF

[12] Number varies between $226.12 billion and $226.125 billion due to rounding.

[13] //www.hillnews.com/news/051904/cbo.aspx

[14] Includes all proposals listed under the Agriculture/Rural, Civil Rights, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Housing, International Aid, Justice and Law Enforcement, and Science and Technology headings in Appendix A.