GA's HB 1452

[POC]

Soc,

I have given you and others a break for a while by not posting too much at SPARC for a while. But, I am curious as to what your legal thoughts are regarding HB 1452 in GA. One area of particular interest to me is the basis of child support guidelines on child costs expenditures in intact families. Of course, as we all know, CS guidelines are not applied to intact families. This results in the guidelines only being applied to the very class of people who were specifically excluded or represented from the surveys upon which the guidelines are based. I liken that to trying to find the cure for sickle cell anemia by studying Norwegian ancestry.

Anyway, I would like to hear your thoughts about:

1) Application of the guidelines to only the very group of people specifically excluded from economic data.

2) Your thoughts on HB 1452 in general if you have any.

Here is a link to the bill - http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003_04/fulltext/hb1452.htm

[socrateaser]

>1) Application of the guidelines to only the very group of
>people specifically excluded from economic data.

It seems entirely reasonable to extract cost of living information from intact families, if your goal is to try to duplicate the benefits provided in non-intact families.

The constitution does not require perfect legislation, or even perfect fairness. It merely requires a statute with a reasonable relationship to a legitimate state interest, where no fundamental rights are impaired.

As for evidence, such a report could be found inadmissible in a court for lack of adequate foundation, i.e., the evidence isn't relevant to determining the cost of providing care in an intact relationship. Unfortunately, legislatures don't need to follow the rules of evidence in crafting laws, and even if they were, the existing guideline statutes are based on providing support based on the parent's ability to pay, rather than the cost of raising a child, therefore, not only the evidence would be irrelevant, but the entire ISSUE of cost would be irrelevant.

In short, seems as though this is just government pretending to do something -- as usual.


>
>2) Your thoughts on HB 1452 in general if you have any.

Thanks, but at the moment I don't have time to read the bill.

[POC]

Thanks for your opinion Soc.

As usual, I am having trouble finding the reasonable relationship to a state interest of replicating intact family expenditures, if as you say the guidelines are based upon income rather than the costs of raising children.

No need to reply. But, thanks again for your opinion.