Sunday, December 02, 2007

Taking food out of the mouths of hungry children

By Libby

Under the heading, robbing the poor to pay the rich, this heartless policy has to be one of most counterproductive scams in the history of legalized, governmental highway robbery.

The collection of child support from absent fathers is failing to help many of the poorest families, in part because the government uses fathers’ payments largely to recoup welfare costs rather than passing on the money to mothers and children.

Close to half the states pass along none of collected child support to families on welfare, while most others pay only $50 a month to a custodial parent, usually the mother, even though the father may be paying hundreds of dollars each month.

The whole notion of enhancing child support collections was sold on the premise that it would help keep mothers off welfare. Instead it's just one more underhanded trick to punish women for procreating while poor, while enriching the government's payola funds. It seems to me that every time the government has 'reformed' the welfare system, they have only made it more impossible for single mothers to escape poverty.

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