Actually, there's very little information there that enlightens anything. It reads as a sensationalist story.
For example take one of the more volatile statements: "there are millions of dollars in
child support that have been collected but not distributed to the children it was intended for". Sounds like an important statistic on the surface. But let's dig a little deeper:
- How many millions?
- How much is the total child support collected in this country (hint: it's BILLIONS, not millions). So what is the percentage that doesn't get where it's going?
- WHY did that child support not get to the designated place? Was a parent in hiding so that they could not be located? Was it an admin messup what was later resolved? Did someone steal the money?
There's nothing in there which addresses the fundamental issues:
- Are children in general benefiting from Child support?
- What percentage of children are not getting the benefit of child support?
- What percentage of the collected child support is actually spent for the child's benefit?
- And so on.
THOSE are the questions that matter - and none of them is addressed. Instead, this article provides more of the same fear-mongering that is so common and that I'm resisting in this board. Example? The repeat the story of someone who was handcuffed in front of his co-workers. That's a tragic story, no doubt. But unless they can show that it happens a significant amount of time, it's no more than a personal tragedy. They make absolutely no effort to show how common these tragedies are - and without that effort, it's nothing more than a fear-mongering exercise.
Add to that the regular statements with no backup "we believe the amount of undistributed child support is too high" or "we believe the $4.38 collected per dollar spent is incorrect" statements. They could be right. But until they provide SOMETHING to support their statements that the government figures are wrong, it's nothing more than whining. If they have a real plan backed by real evidence, I'd be as happy as anyone to see it implemented. I do NOT, however, favor plans based purely on emotion coming from people who even admit in their paper that they don't understand financial issues ("We would like to see a financial expert "crunch" the numbers.")
This doesn't apply solely to this issue, btw. It applies to everything. People need to learn to think critically and look for evidence rather than accepting every emotional appeal thrown at them.
Accepting statements like "this figure is too high" without even wondering how they arrived at that conclusion doesn't do anyone any good.
