Tennessee Struggles With Child Support Debt

Mothers who make no effort to identify father of their children could have a cap on the number of years in which they can go back and seek child support.

“We’re asking the legislature to consider allowing a law that says you can’t go back any more than five years,” 9th Judicial District Attorney General Russell Johnson said.

Johnson said his office collected $8.173 million in child support during the 2014-15 fiscal year and led the state in establishing orders in cases.

An inability to pay is a problem many defendants run into, according to Johnson.

“What’s happening is these dads, usually dads, sometimes mothers, owe tens of thousands of dollars in child support going back 18 years at some point,” Johnson said. “They’ll never get it paid.”

To convey his point, Johnson’s office looked at the number of inmates in the Roane County Jail with child support issues as of Dec. 1.

Two were in custody on a child support hold only, and another 10 were in jail with criminal and child support holds.

The total child support arrearages for those 12 inmates was $343,210.54.

“Right now, you place a child support amount from birth until 18,” Johnson said. “In a lot of cases, most of these are not typically just people coming out of divorce with kids. They are people who have had kids out of wedlock, which is a common thing.”

Johnson’s office handles cases free of charge in Magistrate Charles Crass’ court for custodial parents who have either a divorce decree or court order requiring someone to pay child support.

“The court and the state can’t relieve you of paying the child support,” Johnson said. “It’s going to be there forever. Judge Crass just can’t say well that’s OK, don’t worry about that $20,000.”

A law that puts a cap on the number of years a person can go back to seek child support could force parents to take advantage of their rights sooner.

“You’ve got to immediately file something for paternity and get that going and get that person identified,” Johnson said. “You can’t wait until right before the child is about to turn 18 and go back and say, ‘hey, John Doe, you’re the father of my child, let’s have a DNA test and prove it, and now you’re owing 18 years of child support you didn’t know about’.”

The next session of the Tennessee General Assembly starts in January.

“That’s something the legislature is going to look at,” Johnson said.

If that happens, Johnson said it could also cause the legislature to look at some of the problems the court system is having with defendants who can’t pay their fines and court costs in criminal cases.

original article at Roane County News

While states struggle with their child support issues, the federal government takes support from any available source, including social security and tax offices. Men continue to be cut down by unconstitutional and cruel law like the Bradley Amendment, which prohibits any retroactive change in child support.

Oklahoma Could Owe Millions in Child Support Overcharges

• Some parents have been overcharged for back child support.
• A judge ruled Monday that the state has to pay millions in repayment.
• If his ruling is upheld, a search of paper records will decide who is owed refunds.

A judge’s decision against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services in a class-action lawsuit could cost the state millions of dollars if upheld on appeal.

The Oklahoman reports that Oklahoma County District Judge Barbara Swinton ruled that for years, the state agency has charged fathers in paternity cases too much in interest for back child support judgments.

Four men filed the lawsuit in 2011. They claimed they were wrongfully charged 10 percent interest rather than a fluctuating rate determined by the prime rate set by banks.

Department of Human Services records dating to 2000 show that more than 26,000 men could be due refunds. If the decision is upheld, a search of paper records that date back to 1993 will be necessary to determine who is owed refunds.

Bob Robinson, an attorney for the four men, estimates the state will have to reimburse fathers $130 million or more.

Oklahoma Department of Human Services attorney Richard Freeman said in reference to Robinson’s estimate that “It could be in the millions for sure, potentially. I don’t think it will be that much.”

Freeman also said that the reimbursement funds could come from insurance.

The agency says the way it computes, assesses and collects interest on child support judgments is proper under Oklahoma law.

After the lawsuit was filed, the law was rewritten to make clear that the human services department can charge 10 percent interest on back child support in paternity cases. The new law went into effect on Nov. 1, 2012.

—–

Of course, using a little magical thinking, the state insists on making no error despite their mistake. Those that have paid child support and kept up won’t see any benefit. However, those that have paid a penalty for late support payments can expect to see a refund in a few years, at least if the attorney doesn’t grab all the loot for “fees and expenses”. This should also force Oklahoma to compute all back support amounts for all child support from 1993 to 2012. – MJR

 

Child Support Laws Crippling Poor Fathers

by Charles E. Lewis Jr., Ph.D

The more one learns about our system of criminal justice, the more one must wonder about some of its senseless policies.  That the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world is pretty much common knowledge to most.  But in case you have been asleep at the wheel, here are some mind-numbing numbers. With about five percent of the world’s population, the United States is home to nearly 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population.  About 2.2 million people are locked behind bars on a given day.  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 1,561,500 inmates in state and federal prisons at year-end 2014 (serving terms of one year or more) and another 744,660 in local jails at midyear 2014.  About 6.9 million Americans (one in 35 adults) were under some form of correctional supervision (incarcerated, on parole or probation) at yearend 2013.  The number of adult Americans with felony convictions is estimated to be about 24 million (8.6%).  About 25 percent of black American adults have a felony conviction.

That’s the big picture.  However, throughout our criminal justice system there are laws, regulations, and issues that are antithetical to the notion of a free and democratic society.  The coercive and often deadly policing of neighborhoods of color, discriminatory “stop and frisk” laws, criminalization of the mentally ill, bail policies that unfairly impact poor suspects, and what many consider to be the inhumane over dependence on and arbitrary use of solitary confinement.  Family members and friends are often forced to travel inordinate distances to visit children, friends, and other people they care for.  They are charged exorbitant fees to speak with them by telephone and are treated without dignity during visitation.  Much of this has occurred because various elected officials compete to see who can be toughest on people who defy the law.  Many books and hundreds of journal articles have been written about our unjust system of crime control.  My dissertation focused on the impact of incarceration on the earnings and employment of indigent fathers.

The Washington Post ran an article on one particularly perplexing policy impacting poor inmates which disproportionately affects black and Latino fathers.  Child support obligations continue during periods of incarceration which often amass significant amounts of debt while these fathers are behind bars.  Once released, indebted fathers are under pressure to pay down their arrears.  Failure to do so results in more late fees and penalties and could ultimately put them back in prison.  In many jurisdictions this occurs because incarceration is considered “voluntary impoverishment”.  The term generally refers to those who quit their jobs or otherwise forfeit income in order to avoid paying an ex-spouse alimony or child support.  A classic example might be Marvin Gaye’s 1978 release of “Here My Dear,” thought to be a lackluster recording whose proceeds were going to his ex-wife, Anna Gordy Gaye.

The idea that poor fathers would deliberately get themselves locked up to avoid paying child support is ludicrous on its face and a ridiculous justification for current policy.  Columbia University social work professor Ronald B. Mincy and Urban Institute scholar Elaine Sorensen first wrote about child support policies that were burying poor incarcerated fathers back in 1998 differentiating “deadbeat” dads from “turnips”.  Deadbeat dads were those who could afford to pay but did not.  Turnips were fathers who were unable to pay—the thinking being the old adage that you can’t get blood from a turnip.  Although there is a judge in Alabama who thinks giving blood is a reasonable substitute.

The Obama Administration believes current child support policy that piles debts on poor incarcerated fathers is helping no one.  It does nothing for the mother or her child’s circumstance.  Housing the father as an inmate is significantly more costly than what the state could recoup from fathers for welfare payments to their children.  Fathers are often removed permanently from the lives of their children which one could argue might be good or bad.  The Office of Child Support Enforcement has drafted new rules that will go into effect in 2017 that changes the definition of incarceration to “involuntary” impoverishment and would allow indigent incarcerated fathers to push the pause button or negotiate a payment reduction while incarcerated.

Not surprising Republican lawmakers oppose what appears to be a commonsense rule change.   Utah Senator Orin Hatch and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have introduced legislation to block the new rules.  There are many things wrong with our current system of criminal justice and reform is moving at a glacial pace.  In the meantime, much too much human capital is being obliterated by the many indelible scars being inflicted on far too many people—particularly African American males.

Child Support Laws Crippling Poor Fathers was originally published @ Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy » Charles Lewis.

Child Support, Prison & Crushing Debt

Of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in the United States, about half are parents, and at least 1 in 5 has a child-support obligation. For most, the debt will keep piling up throughout their imprisonment: By law or by practice, child-support agencies in much of the country consider incarceration a form of “voluntary impoverishment.” Parents like Harris, the logic goes, have only themselves to blame for not earning a living. But that may be about to change.

What does this tell you about overdue child support?

Republicans opposed to new regulations

The Obama administration has authorized a new set of regulations that would reclassify incarceration as “involuntary,” giving parents the right to push the pause button on child-support payments. The regulations are set to be published early next year and implemented by states by 2017.

Congressional Republicans oppose the new policy. They argue that it would undercut the 1996 welfare reform act, which pressed states to locate missing fathers and bill them for child support so taxpayers wouldn’t bear the full burden of their children’s welfare. (What idiots, the debt can’t be paid anyway.)

“I am fundamentally opposed to policies that allow parents to abdicate their responsibilities, which, in turn, results in more families having to go on welfare,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a speech in June on the Senate floor. Obama’s new regulations, he said, “would undermine a key feature of welfare reform, which is that single mothers can avoid welfare if fathers comply with child-support orders.”

Frances Pardus-Abbadessa, head of child-support enforcement for New York City, said: “The complaint we often hear is, ‘Why should incarcerated fathers, of all people, be the ones to get a break from their obligations — and at a cost to the taxpayer?’ “

Administration officials and their supporters counter that billing fathers while they’re in prison does little but dig them deeper into debt.

“Billing poor fathers doesn’t help poor mothers and kids become less poor,” said Jacquelyn Boggess, a poverty expert with the Center for Family Policy and Practice.

“All it creates,” she said, “is a highly indebted individual.”

Debt piles up

For Earl Harris, the problem was keeping up. He had a job in prison, cleaning the kitchen, but it paid only $7.50 a month — well short of the $168 the state of Missouri was billing him.

“Didn’t they know I was in prison?” he asks. “Weren’t they the ones that put me in there?”

When he got out in 2001, the unpaid amount was listed on his credit report — and pursued by an agency with the power to garnish 65 percent of his wages, intercept his tax returns, freeze his bank account, suspend his driver’s license and, if he failed to pay, lock him up again. By then, his debt had surged to more than $10,000.

Harris entered barbering school but soon returned to drug dealing and was thrown back into prison for nearly a decade. Meanwhile, his child-support debt swelled to more than $25,000.

Incarceration currently deemed ‘voluntary’

Harris’s plight is not unusual. The Marshall Project interviewed nearly three dozen noncustodial parents in 10 states; they all left prison owing between $10,000 and $110,000 in child support. Mostly fathers who are disproportionately black and poor, these parents faced prosecution for not repaying the debt, even after their children were grown.

And what they were able to pay did not necessarily go to their children or the mother. The state often kept their money as repayment for welfare, child care or Medicaid benefits that had been provided to the family while the dad was locked up.

To address the issue, the Obama administration began drafting new rules about four years ago. As currently written, the rules would forbid state child-support agencies from classifying incarceration as “voluntary,” granting parents the legal right to a reduction in payments while they’re in prison, a right that does not exist in 14 states.

The rules would require agencies to inform incarcerated parents of this right and would encourage agencies to provide a reduction in payments automatically. And they would urge states to transfer all payments directly to custodial parents — mostly mothers — and their children.

The administration proposal would provide about $35 million over the next five years to modernize the child-support system and to provide job training, job placement, bus fare, and other services to fathers facing prosecution for nonpayment.

The rule “will make sure that arrears don’t accumulate endlessly while a parent is incarcerated,” said Vicki Turetsky, President Barack Obama’s commissioner of child-support enforcement. “Our goal is to collect, month by month, for kids. We can do that when parents are employed, not in debt.”

Hatch and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., have introduced legislation to block the new rules, though neither lawmaker has pushed to advance the measure.

Ron Haskins, a child-support expert at the Brookings Institution, said he and other conservatives actually support parts of the new regulations. But they worry, he said, that the policy “could begin a long process of undermining the child-support concept, which they strongly believe in.”

The struggle after prison

Back in North St. Louis, Earl Harris, now 38, has put in his hours as an apprentice barber and is one written test away from getting his license. In the meantime, he is living in a halfway house and working at a factory across the river in Illinois, packaging Febreze canisters and Swiffer mops.

His hours are 4 p.m. to midnight, though he arrives an hour early to make sure he doesn’t lose his spot to another temp worker waiting outside the building in hopes of getting a shift. After work, he typically gets a cousin to drive him back to his dorm room, where he sleeps from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. before heading to his daily support group for fathers.

By 8 a.m. the dads are circled up, talking about having kids and debt. They have come because the program helps them find a job, develop strategies for handling their arrears and work on their parenting skills. They also get free legal help. Many of them were incarcerated, almost exclusively for selling drugs, and everyone is wearing a jacket and tie, the uniform of employment.

One father, Louis Moore, said his debt soared to almost $60,000 while he was inside. Allan Newcomer’s is more than $68,000. “Everybody in the penitentiaries was getting the letters,” Newcomer said.

Lisl Williams, a former judge who now works with the fathers, said even if they spend their money on food, clothes or toys for their children, it does not reduce their debt. In many cases, she said, the whole family — the mother, aunts, uncles, cousins — chips in to help pay it, and then the money they pay goes to the government as repayment for welfare they received long ago.

Because the fathers don’t have large incomes to garnish, bank accounts to tap or property to seize, she adds, they are more likely to face re-incarceration for not paying their arrears.

‘I know I’m the bad man’ (Oh, really?)

Another dad, Corey Mason, said he was incarcerated and already racking up child-support debt when he got a notice saying he might have another child by a different mother. He was instructed to go to the medical wing, get a DNA swab and send it to the agency. When they confirmed his paternity, he started getting a new set of child-support bills.

Mason sent several handwritten letters to the agency explaining that he was in prison. He said he never got a response. (So who is really bad? You know!)

Now that he’s out, Mason has a job at the Marriott hotel downtown. He works the graveyard shift, cleaning, shutting down the bar, providing towels to customers who ask for extra. Because the child-support agency garnishes well over half his weekly paycheck, he turned down a recent promotion.

“I want to grow in the company. But I don’t want to work that much harder if they’re just going to take all of it to pay for history,” Mason said.

“I know I’m the bad man. But I’m working harder now than I ever have, and it’s like this is designed to keep me behind, backed up against the wall, in debt for the rest of my life.” (Hear the defeat and fear? That’s what they want!)

Obama: ‘Too many fathers M.I.A, AWOL’

Obama has frequently scolded the same absentee fathers who now stand to benefit from his regulations. “Too many fathers are M.I.A., too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes,” he told a Chicago audience in 2008 as a candidate for president.

Some fathers interviewed for this story had multiple children — one man said he had 12 — by different mothers. Many seemed less than eager to find employment. A few served time for domestic violence.

Some mothers say these men do not deserve to be freed of their debt.

“There’s a real tension here, as a matter of public policy,” said Joan Entmacher, an expert on family poverty at the National Women’s Law Center. “There are absolutely fathers who evade their responsibilities, saying, ‘Oh, I can’t pay that,’ and not even trying. We don’t want to simply reward that attitude.”

Even if a father is a deadbeat, however, the evidence is clear: Noncustodial fathers are far more likely to pay child support, and otherwise reengage with their families, if payments are manageable.

In a 2012 study by the Center for Policy Research, a private nonprofit research organization, fathers paid a much higher percentage of their monthly obligations when offered relief from unpayable state-owed debt. In studies in Maryland, Illinois and California, fewer than 15 percent remained noncompliant once the old debts were reduced and they were given a schedule of regular payments. And the fathers most likely to abide by “debt compromise” agreements were those who had been incarcerated.

Boggess, the child-support analyst, said that trying to collect the accumulated debt is “like squeezing an empty bottle and hoping something comes out.

“These fathers are poor, period. Their arrears are uncollectible, period,” she said. “They’ve never even met anyone who had $30,000.”

States taking action

Many states have already taken action. In 36 states and the District, incarceration is no longer officially considered “voluntary” impoverishment, and an imprisoned father is legally entitled to have his monthly child-support bill modified to as little as $50 a month or, in rare cases, stopped altogether.

But it is still up to the father to prove he is incarcerated, and then to file for the reduction. This involves navigating a maze of paperwork from prison, usually with no lawyer, irregular access to phones and, in many cases, an eighth- or ninth-grade education.

The most common pitfall, said Bo Twiggs, the director of UpNext, a program in New York City that helps recently incarcerated fathers, is that the incarcerated dad has no idea his child support is piling up because he isn’t getting the notices. The debt keeps compounding – and federal law prohibits the reduction of child-support bills retroactively.

“It’s hard for these fathers to understand that they can’t wait, they can’t adjust to life in prison before dealing with child support, that they need to take action immediately because the debt will be permanent,” Twiggs said. “That’s really counterintuitive.”

When these fathers get out of prison, they often don’t notice the debt until the state begins pursuing it, “which forces them to go underground instead of rejoining the formal economy,” said Turetsky, Obama’s commissioner of child-support enforcement.

Indeed, research shows that the two most important factors in a former prisoner’s successful reentry into the community are employment and positive relationships with family. Both of these are hindered by the aggressive pursuit of child-support arrears: Garnishing 65 percent of a father’s paycheck, so he is tempted to earn cash off the books; suspending his driver’s license so he can’t get to work; sending him bills that are so far beyond his capacity to pay that he keeps his distance from his family.

“I see it all the time,” Twiggs said: “Not reengaging with the family. Noncompliance with parole and child support. Under-the-table efforts at income. Self-defeat, high anxiety, general institutional distrust. All of that is triggered by this absolutely overwhelming, impossible feeling of debt.”

portions from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Jackpot Winnings” Go To Deadbeat States

by Moody Jim Rathbone

On an increasing basis, “news articles” are bragging about how the “jackpot earnings” of “deadbeat parents” are being forfeited to various states. The latest in braggarts is the not-so-humble state of Ohio, where jackpot winnings were claimed as credited toward 1,657 overdue child support cases statewide. This is the latest wrinkle as states attempt to “tar and feather” powerless “deadbeat parents.”

What these articles don’t say and what the states don’t want you to know is that the state corporations that collect these “debts” receive a substantial windfall from the federal government. In the case of recent Ohio collections, the state is claiming to have received $2 million dollars. What isn’t said is that these state corporations receive double that amount from the federal government, an amount that comes out of the pockets of US taxpayers and an unsustainable spending debt that the nation can ill afford. The nation is bilking many parents that cannot afford it, even when some choose to gamble what they have. The state corporations will take it any way they can get it, as they justify financial pickings through “law.” Never mind that the whole current child support scam is illegal and unconstitutional per the founding documents of the nation.

The bigger question is what these state corporations are doing with all that federal cash, since they are charging taxpayers for billboards, super websites that list collections from casinos in “real time,” and other collection efforts on the side as well. Life must be mighty sweet for these collection agencies that are taking cash in from all sides in the name of poor helpless children. What are they doing with the money? That is the question you should be asking of your local child support collection agent. These scumbags deserve to be tarred and feathered for their criminal, but legal, activity.

Father’s Day – Money Is The Measure, Not Freedom

by J. Greene

Men have been honestly caring for their children from the beginnings of civilization. Some have not, including mothers. It has always been that way. We don’t live in a perfect world. Enter the modern state in all its’ wisdom, where all people are expected to tolerate a state-controlled legalized extortion racket because children are the future – but mostly for benefit of the state. The state even routinely combs through bank records in the eternal vanity of finding a few stray bucks from those that dare to evade child support collection. It’s an old game whose influence has steadily increased since the free love movement, when rancorous feminists began burning their bras and politicians saw the political cache they could achieve through social manipulation. As a result, the real role of fatherhood and the definition of a family has been continually cheapened.

In the corporation known as the United States, the system routinely oppresses fathers, while offering poverty support to single and divorced mothers (and some fathers). They have also been oppressing the taxpayer as well, hoping and pretending to bring in more than they spend, even as they send state corporations double their child support collections. Only the light-headed politicians of the United States would think to do such a thing. Of course, these are the same men and women that fund operations as the “policeman of world” while playing “Uncle Sugar” to the world. They even continue to send China a regular stipend because of its’ poverty, while running a burgeoning deficit that the children of the future are expected to pay. This is obviously unsustainable, despite the fact that they indirectly operate the printing presses that prop up the reserve currency of the world. In fact, this is the only reason that the lawmakers that rule “Uncle Sugar” can continue to operate as they have. The nation as it stands is living on borrowed time.

Since money is the measure in the propaganda that is cast about, you’ll find that fatherhood is measured the same way. This is no surprise in a nation mesmerized by the illusion of wealth. Social scientists at Johns Hopkins have decided that low income fathers purchase a relationship with their children.

“They want their kids to look down at their feet and say, ‘My dad cares about me because he bought me these shoes,’” says a co-author of the study in a press statement. “We need to respect what these guys are doing, linking love and provision in a way that’s meaningful to the child. The child support system weakens the child/father bond by separating the act of love from the act of providing.”

Yet, the child support system plugs along mercilessly despite a nation of earners that has not truly recovered from the economic debacle that eclipsed in 2008. Untold millions have been crushed, merely grist for the mill of poor governance. Republicans claim that we must find a way to be fiscally responsible, while supporting the current child support system that imprisons the nation. This is a lie pressed to ignorant people. They simply support the status quo with the illusion of conservative values. Their buddies are merely more “progressive.” Meanwhile, the men that give their blind consent can choose to pretend they are purchasing the adoration of their children, as these social scientists say, or they can realize the truth.

The family is only a family as long as the family unit is together. Once breached by rejection, separation and divorce, a family is not a family at all – especially outside of a committed relationship. That a single mother and her child is a real family is also debatable. The “wise men” of the nation have simply continued to revise the definition of the family to suit their needs. That is the deeper reality that the state would have you ignore to your continued peril. It benefits them for you to believe as you do.

It has been posited that the “Founding Fathers” would turn over in their graves if they were able to know about the ongoing debt slavery and legalized human trafficking that is the United States. I think not. These men were fully aware of the hypocrisy that “America” was built on. The governance of the nation has profited from the slavery and oppression of others from the very beginning with little apology, or admission of error. The lawgivers have even reconfigured the corporation to enslave for personal advantage. Robber barons everywhere continue the public plunder under the pretense of propriety and a kind face when it suits them. Your consent is your ignorance. Even governance is just another corporation. They seduce “the people” with infrastructure and social trinkets. The propaganda machine has continued to eject that notion that the nation is a democracy, the “land of the free.” Who the “free” truly are is for you to decide.

The Birth Certificate Scam

ABSTRACT. Long form, short form, birth pledge, estate, cestui que trust, birth bond, BC bond, Treasury account, SSN, SS bond, DTC…

This article explains the series of transactions that comprise the birth scam whereby governments convert the birth of a child into a financial asset to underwrite the public debt and the issuance of substance-shy currency. Dubbed by the author the Uniform Securitization Scheme or USS, this universal pattern of “legalization,” registration, certification, securitization and general deposit is revealed to be a blueprint for virtually every event of our lives involving government, from simple purchases to the most complex banking, economic and Court transactions, in particular the metamorphosis of loan applications into salable securities. The article suggests that a comprehensive understanding of the birth schematic will provide the reader with a new plateau to address the complications when constitutors of the government face enticements to become its subjects. The author states that the article is offered to elevate discussion to a new plateau and assist concerned people in explaining their positions to friends and relatives.

THE UNIFORM SECURITIZATION SCHEME

INTRODUCTION.

There was a time when the joyous event of childbirth was recorded in the family Bible to signify the child’s status as a member of the family’s posterity with implied rights of an heir. To this day, the family Bible remains a lawful record that is recognized in the “legal” system. In 1933, when most privately-held gold was confiscated by the Federal Reserve System under Executive Order 6102 and obligations payable in gold were outlawed under H.J.R. 192 (Public Law 73-10), the substance-backed economy was replaced by a financial system based upon credit (IOU’s) which is currently failing under the weight of it’s own nature. What is that nature?

Like “Seinfeld,” very simply, nothing. Empty promises to pay backed by fraudulent presumptions of informed consent. It’s an economy where the books always add up to zero, where the very nature of bookkeeping had to be altered to disguise the void (double-entry bookkeeping), where the notion of a single entry to explain your purchase of a pack of gum was apparently inadequate to hide the theft of your money, where every asset is also entered as an offsetting liability, where the law itself had to be replaced by commercial hypocrisy, where the sum total of all activity in every government licensed institution, bank, Court and corporation
equals zero each and every day, where transactions which once involved the exchange of goods and services of equal value now involve the exchange of “securities” of equal “value” (nothing) as the term “value” is defined in inferior statutory “law.”

Like “Seinfeld,” the world suffers not so much an economy, as a comedy of errors. Perhaps more correctly, a comedy of frauds wherein the concept of “value” is established by words on the page instead of the perceived value of goods, services and labor at hand; where up is down, black is white, and timeless immorality is perfectly “legal.”

It is a well established fact that the United States is defined as a corporation in Section 3002 of the Judiciary Code. Meaning that the United States judiciary operates under the global presumption that the United States is a corporation, notwithstanding periodic attempts by learned attorneys-at-law to treat this fact casually.

What is a corporation? In essence: nothing. A construction of words on pieces of paper. A contrivance without a soul, sentience or conscience. The question becomes, How does an unconscious paper corporation operating in an economy without substance control the population of living people under the original public trust charter? The answer is self-evident. Organized commercial fraud which applies ancient edifices of commercial sleight-of-hand such as legal fictions, certification, registration and securitization to achieve outcomes which would otherwise be impossible (and certainly repugnant to the Founders). Translation: the machines harness the people’s commercial energy through a Matrix of scripted distractions and diversions wherein fraud, falsehood and fallacy supplant the law until amnesia has become endemic. That system is known as the “legal” system, a profit-inspired veneer for THE universal system of voodoo accounting explained in this article: the Uniform Securitization Scheme which runs invisibly as the operational schematic that underlies all public events be it the birth of a baby, the issuance of currency, economic “bailouts,” a court case, a purchase, a loan, a mortgage or a real estate transaction. Without your awareness, virtually every event of your life which involves a public institution has been covertly superimposed on the underlying Uniform Securitization Scheme (“USS”) revealed in this article, so that the actual events are invisible.

The USS is the EXACT SAME PROCESS used by banks to PLEDGE your credit card and loan applications as the surety for certificates and notes issued by their subsidiaries and sold to investors. Patriot mythology has held that these loan applications are actually securities. As will be revealed, in this instance the legend is true. The evidence is contained in every Rule 424(b)(5) prospectus filed by every bank with the SEC. A Bank of America flowchart published in a 2010 SEC prospectus is included in Appendix B to graphically demonstrate the universality of the USS. This chilling roadmap to the Uniform Securitization Scam may be helpful to review as you read about the pledges, certification, re-deposit and various techniques that comprise the USS.

To understand the Uniform Securities Scheme is to understand the commercial world around you, and the banks, government agencies and Courts that seek to control your life. The author has no objection if a copy of this article is sent to every JUDGE TRUST on the Federal and State benches, and every political prisoner in America.

__________________
I.
THE UNIFORM SECURITIZATION SCAM

The fuel behind the United States Federal corporation, the underlying premise behind every transaction in which you have participated, is the presumption that your labor has been voluntarily pledged to pay the debts of the United States (the public debt). Is this presumption factual or the wild concoction of misguided conspiracy theorists? Is it even remotely possible that the Founders’ descendants are captured as sureties for the escapades of their public officials?

The answer will soon be clear. It will be found by exploring a series of legal maneuvers known as “legalization,” registration, certification, securitization and general deposit which comprise the essence of the Uniform Securitization Scheme (“USS”). That same scheme is used at every stage of the Matrix, from the construction of the birth account to the reverse mortgage you sign on your death bed. To understand the birth certificate scam, is to understand loans, mortgages, purchases, deeds and all the other mirror-image substitutions for good old fashioned truth.

II
THE PLEDGE OF FUTURE PERFORMANCE; SECURITY FUTURES

Almost immediately, the blessed event of the delivery of an infant is marred by using its right foot to make an impression on a hospital birth record (HBR). The HBR provides public testimony of the baby’s “birth” on the continent and status as an “owner” of the United States.

Contrary to popular opinion, ownership is not control. In the “legal” system, ownership is defined as a pledge to act as surety for the debts incurred by the property. In the case of the United States, that doctrine is enshrined in Article VI of the Constitution which says:

“All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.”

In other words, the act of registering the child with the United States Federal corporation through a government-licensed hospital comprises THE OWNER’S PLEDGE OF FUTURE LABOR, the “full faith and credit” that underwrites all U.S. currency and public debt under the ancient doctrine that ownership equals liability. After all, who else but the owners would be motivated to pay the bills?

For the sake of skeptical friends and family, here are the sound bites: Who else but the people of the United States stand behind U.S. currency? Does the issuance of a U.S. hospital birth record signify one’s responsibility to pay taxes and underwrite the public debt?

III
OPENING AN ACCOUNT

The HBR is delivered to the incorporated County for the purpose of transmitting the infant’s pledge into the “legal” system. What happens when you transfer property? What must you do when you make a purchase on the internet? What’s the first step in creating a commercial relationship with your doctor, bank and phone company? They open an account in your name.

As with any asset, the incorporate County as the receiving institution must open an account and log it in. The County Registrar opens an account in the County’s books. As you will discover, the sole purpose of every account that has ever been opened in your name is to leverage (issue) future securities. You are unaware of this because you are unaware of the definition of securities.

Opening an account is a boilerplate event in the Uniform Securitization Scam when any bank, Court, corporation or government institution seeks to assess the owner with a portion of the public debt and tap into your Estate to pay the assessment.

IV
REDUCING STATUS TO A NUMBER

As with any account, the County birth account is assigned a number, typically in the format: 123-45-654321. The first number group identifies the corporate State, the second group identifies the year of delivery, and the third group identifies the transaction. This birth identification number will follow the infant throughout his life. The implications are well documented in Scripture.

“And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel (1 Chronicles 21:1).”

You may wish to read about the consequences of that event to the people of Israel. When we participate in a census for purposes other than to glorify the Lord, we can expect to be condemned.

V
RECORDING A GENERAL DEPOSIT; RELINQUISHING TITLE

The registrar then records the HBR in the account as a general deposit, meaning the State takes title to the funds (your future labor/commercial energy) the same way a bank takes title to your deposits when you use the bank’s endorsement stamp to print “PAY TO THE ORDER OF ACME BANK” on the back of a check before depositing it in “your” account. Haven’t you ever wondered why checks are made payable to the bank instead of to your account? The PAY TO THE ORDER OF notation is not just a material alteration under the Uniform Commercial Code.

It creates a brand new security wherein the bank takes your funds for its own purposes and disguises the acquisition by issuing credits to your account. This one act is the mechanism by which the State steals the infant’s Divine right to her own labor and converts it into a numbered account to act as surety for it’s portion of the public debt owed to the banking cartels under the Constitution. The United States now holds the pledge of the minor child’s future labor deposited “voluntarily” by the child’s mother as the foundation for all the future securities it will attempt to issue in your name.

The HBR is then placed into a vault at City Hall or the County Seat or a subsidiary such as Vital Records. Those who are skeptical might wish to examine their own birth certificates alongside a stock or bond certificate and read the definition of securities in Section 78c of Title 15 of United States Code (subparagraph (a)(10)). The internet provides immediate access.

VI
LEGALIZATION OF YOUR PUBLIC ESTATE

Your estate here on earth consists of your inheritance from the Creator: your body, the air you breath, your possessions, the fruits of your labor. However, as with your name, churches, money, law and courts of record, U.S. Inc. intends to create a fictional mirror-image counterpart of your estate in the public venue. This process is known as “legalization.”

Depositing your presumed security future pledge into a public account for the creation of securities “legalizes” your labor into a public estate (“Estate”), a vast account which holds the pledge of your future labor (an IOU) to act as surety for your portion of the public debt.

Every time your straw man is “charged,” the government is seeking to tap into your Estate to pay the assessment. Your Estate is merely a trust which has been designated as insurance to underwrite the public debt and create profits and proceeds for public officials who seek to convert you from a member of the posterity they are sworn to serve into a subject that exists to provide them with commercial energy and position.

VII
CERTIFICATION

The Registrar certifies the deposit of the pledge by issuing a Certificate of Live Birth or Certificate of Birth (so-called long form) which identifies the child, the parents, the date of birth and the date of certification. This one act legalizes the pledge by converting the presumption of pledged labor into a security. Section 8-102(a)(4) of the Uniform Commercial Code defines a “Certificated Security” as “a security that is represented by a certificate.” By issuing the Certificate, the Registrar is confessing
that the hospital birth record is a certificated security, and the County is the depository institution which has taken title to the “funds.”

Certification is the same process used by banks to launder your credit application into an “asset”to be sold to investors. The BOA flowchart in Appendix B provides a graphic confession of thecertification scam. Notice that the BA Master Credit Card Trust II is the certificating subsidiary that certificates your credit card application. What is a credit card application? A pledge. It’s your pledge (security future) to pay the line-of credit that the bank “creates” when they approve your credit card application.

Regarding general deposit and certification, the County and Bank of America are birds of a feather. Both seek to interpret your signature as a pledge of future performance, a security future. The act of certificating the hospital birth record legalizes the infant’s pledge as a security future “asset” for posting as tangible funds in various public accounts as you will see. This is the scheme by which the obligation to perform is transferred from public officials who are sworn to act as
trustees of the public trust, to the hapless “legal” Citizen “strawman” created (as you will see later) to act as a substitute trustee through the process of “legalizing” the infant’s pledge into the public venue.

VIII
REDEPOSIT

The Secretary of the Treasury is notified of the pledge presumably by the transmission of a certified copy of the pledge certificate or electronic record of the County deposit, thereby beginning the Uniform Securitization Scam (create an account, make a general deposit, certificate the “asset,” issue derivative securities as if they’re tax exempt original issues) once again.

The Secretary’ delegates open an account identified by the previously assigned birth certificate number for the sole purpose of leveraging (issuing) securities against your Estate. The infant’s pledge represented by the Certificate of Live Birth is deposited, again generally, providing the “funds” against which future securities will be issued.

THIS IS HOW THE CORPORATION TAPS INTO THE ESTATE TO UNDERWRITE EVERY SECURITY THAT IT ISSUES, every indictment, citation, bill, bond, charging instrument, complaint, summons, arrest warrant, promissory note, assessment and mortgage.

THIS IS WHY THE GURUS HAVE TOLD YOU EVERYTHING IS PREPAID. Under the
UCC, the term “for value” is defined as a pre-paid account. The birth account at Treasury is the prepaid account against which all such assessments, and your setoffs and acceptances “for value” will be drawn. The pre-payment is the long form Certificate of Live Birth representing the security future pledge of future labor.

This is the account that supplies the funds when you mark a bill “charge the same toJOHN HENRY DOE 123-45-6789.”

This is the elusive “Treasury account” prosecutors love to ridicule when prosecuting a patriot. For many patriots, this may be the first time you have understood what you’ve been writing in your acceptances. Without this understanding, how could you possibly hope to enforce them? The potential damage to themselves and the technology when thousands of people issue acceptances without adequate understanding of the processes and cheer each other on in internet groups is self-evident.

IX
CREATION OF A TRUST

When property is transferred, a trust relationship is created. The recipient has an obligation to perform in some fashion such as processing an instrument, protecting the property or delivering a bill. The recipient is therefore a trustee. Section 401 of the Uniform Trust Code confirms that a trust is created upon transfer of property.
SECTION 401. METHODS OF CREATING TRUST.

A trust may be created by:

(1) transfer of property to another person as trustee…

As with any conveyance of property, the deposit of the pledge creates a trust in which the recipient has a trustee obligation to process the instrument. This is the so-called Birth Certificate
trust. It is not the result of some bureaucrat recording a trust, but the natural consequence of a transfer. The birth trust is identified by the original birth number assigned by the County registrar. As you will see, this number represents a variety of accounts, trusts, securities and certificates all derived from the original pledge.

X
RE-ISSUE OF SECONDARY SECURITIES; THE BIRTH BOND

The first security issued from the Treasury account is the birth bond which the United States uses to underwrite its currency. Like the pledge, the birth bond is a certificated book-entry security future, a bet against your future performance, which is re-presented (noticed) into the public by a certificate: the short form Birth Certificate. Like any bond, the birth bond is nothing more than evidence of debt; evidence that the Estate (your labor) is the surety for the infant’s portion of the public debt.

As you may suspect, the purpose of the birth bond is to leverage more securities using the USS template described in this article. The profiteering begins when the birth bond is traded dollar for dollar for money issued by the Federal Reserve, permitting Treasury to place the money into circulation under the premise that it is backed by the people’s “full faith and credit.” The bond is transmitted by the Fed to The Depository Trust Company where it is placed into “safe keeping” for the purpose of re-issuing a vast array of derivative securities, each one written against the pledge and designed to elicit your consent for profiteering.

XI
REGISTRATION

One of the most seemingly benign cogs in the Uniform Securitization Scam, registration, is the process by which a creditor registers a security interest against the owner. Registration is a pernicious method used to take control of “legalized” property by a genuine or presumed secured party under protection of the “legal” franchise and it’s incorporated judiciary. Here are some excerpts from the twelve paragraph operational arrangements published by The Depository Trust Company (“DTC”) to govern DTC Direct and Indirect Participants:

“The Depository Trust Company (“DTC”), New York, NY, will act as securities depository for the securities (the “Securities”). The Securities will be issued as fully-registered securities registered in the name of Cede & Co. (DTC’s partnership nominee) or such other name as may be requested by an authorized representative of DTC.”

“Purchases of Securities under the DTC system must be made by or through Direct Participants, which will receive a credit for the Securities on DTC’s records. The ownership interest of each actual purchaser of each Security (“Beneficial Owner”) is in turn to be recorded on the Direct and Indirect Participants’ records. Beneficial Owners will not receive written confirmation from DTC of their purchase.”

There it is in black and white. The birth bond is “registered” to the benefit of DTC. DTC will not even mention the “Beneficial Owner”—the beneficiary—in its records. By combining the terms “beneficiary” (the sole party with the right to enjoy the fruits of the security) with “owner” (the party that’s liable for all of the debts and injuries caused by the security), you have been reduced to the lowest common denominator: an owner. Forget the adjective “Beneficial,” you don’t matter at all. Your only right is to order the sale of the security to the next hapless owner. If this is hard to accept, ask yourself who suffers when the value of a stock certificate registered to DTC suddenly falls. The owner. Who pays the margin? The owner. Who sells at a loss? The owner. Who makes a profit on the sale by having locked in its position as holder of the security?

The Depository Trust Company.

Conversely, as stated by DTC, the Direct Participant (the financial institution that made the deposit, in this case, the Fed) will be credited with the value of the security. This means that DTC will post the birth bond on its books as a credit to the Direct Participant, not you, allowing the Direct Participant to enjoy the increase in net worth, to borrow against the value, to post between 3 and 10 percent of the bond’s value to the Direct Participant’s reserves thereby allowing the Direct Participant to lend out at least nine times the value of the securities using YOUR pledge as the source of credit.

So while your Estate pays all of the bills assessed against the straw man, the Fed enjoys the value of your pledge. IT IS THROUGH THE BOOK-ENTRIES DESCRIBED IN THIS ARTICLE, IN PARTICULAR THE POSTING OF VALUE IN THE RESERVE ACCOUNTS OF FEDERAL RESERVE BANKS, THAT THE PUBLIC TAPS INTO YOUR ESTATE WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE. In other words, if a Court wishes to assess your Estate, it deposits the indictment security into an account opened in the name of your straw man, and charges the Estate by issuing an arrest warrant security to bring you in for the purpose of consenting to the assessment.

Meanwhile, it is trading against the reserve posting by issuing and trading a Case bond issued from the same account.

XII
RE-ISSUE OF SECONDARY SECURITIES; THE SOCIAL SECURITY BOND

The next security issued by Treasury against the pledge is the master Social Security bond. The purpose of the bond is to create a trust (upon redeposit) which will be used as a vessel to transmit public debt, entice the Estate to act publicly as surety for your portion of the public debt, and transmit funds to the English Crown trust.

XIII
OPENING AN ACCOUNT; SOCIAL SECURITY

Following the Uniform Securitization Scam blueprint, Treasury authorizes the opening of an account to receive the Social Security bond for the customary purpose of leveraging securities.

XIV
REDUCING STATUS TO A NUMBER; SSN

Unlike the birth account maintained by the County and the Secretary of the Treasury, the SS account is assigned a new name and number: JOHN HENRY DOE, SSN 123-45-6789 for the purpose of identifying various derivative bonds to be issued from the account against your Estate (your pledge).

XV
RECORDING A GENERAL DEPOSIT; RELINQUISHING TITLE TO THE SS BOND

As previously described regarding the birth bond, the master Social Security bond is deposited generally into the SS account.

XVI
CREATING A TRUST; SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST

As with any transfer of property, the deposit of the SS bond creates a trust relationship. Over the years, the SS trust, JOHN HENRY SMITH ID # 123-45-6789, has become notorious. But the purpose of the trust is worth repeating: The SS trust will be used as a vessel to transmit public debt, entice the Estate to act publicly as
surety for your portion of the public debt, and transmit funds to the English Crown trust.

The SS trust is a manifestation of debt. It is debt, and nothing more. Internalizing that understanding is helpful to returning control from public officials to the rightful beneficiary that issued the pledge. The trust directives (the terms of the trust) are all the rules and regulations compiled in United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. And guess who is obligated to obey them?…

XVII
PRESUMPTIONS

The Social Security trust is the vehicle used by public officials to plunder the Estate. Upon deposit of the Social Security bond, the Department of the Treasury through the Internal Revenue Service is the trustee of record. But the government bank would rather be the beneficiary. In order to presume that the United States is the beneficiary, Treasury presumes that the straw man account is also a trustee of the SS trust with the obligation to perform all of the trustee’s duties under the public trust. After you accept offers to operate as the trustee on three occasions, the presumption is fulfilled. From then on, the straw man will be treated as a vehicle for transmitting public debt assessments to the Estate by “charging” the straw man for the liability

The stranglehold of the Uniform Securitization Scheme on our lives is BROKEN when we reverse the process and use the SS trust to transmit funds from the Estate to the assessing party upon our express authorization. The name of this process is “setoff.”
__________________
THE UNIFORM IN UNIFORM

Every public transaction mimics the Uniform Securitization Scam. During the $700B bailout of 2008, Treasury issued $700B in bonds, the Fed issued $700B of U.S. money, the bonds were exchanged for the funds and then deposited with DTC following the USS model.

When a prosecutor lodges an indictment with a Court, the Court opens an account, the indictment or information is deposited generally, and an arrest warrant is issued against the indictment which is presumed to be backed by the pledge as manifested in the Estate.

When an attorney lodges a complaint with a Court, the Court opens an account, the complaint is deposited generally, and a summons is issued against the indictment which is presumed to be backed by the pledge as manifested in the Estate.

When you make a withdrawal from at a bank, the bank endorses your draft “PAY TO THE ORDER OF” thereby creating a new security which it posts in its books and exchanges for Federal Reserve Notes, securities of equivalent value.

When you issue a mortgage (promissory) note, the bank opens an account, deposits the note generally thereby taking title to the funds, posts it as an asset and offsetting liability at the full value of the note to the bank (which includes the value of all future interest), and issues a bank check to the seller in the lower face value of the note (uneven exchange), thereby leaving a balance owed to the maker which usually goes unclaimed. the purchase of groceries is also a well-disguised exchange of securities, Federal Reserve Notes, a bank draft or a credit card invoice (security futures) for a cash receipt. In the present economic system of credit swaps, the theft of the groceries without providing equal value is ignored. “It’s the securities, stupid.”

All of these transactions are examples of how the USS manifests in our lives.

CHARGING

To “charge” is to draw funds. How does the public levy the Estate to pay an assessment? The answer is right in front of our face. They charge the strawman account 123-45-6789. Might we follow the same approach if we intend to draw the funds for an acceptance from the Estate?: CHARGE THE SAME TO John Henry Smith ID # 123-45-654321 (birth name and # as they appear on the long form Certif. of Birth) or CHARGE THE SAME TO JOHN HENRY SMITH 123-45-6789 (the SS trust as used by the public customarily to transmit debt to the Estate) The latter form more closely mimics the customary business practices of public institutions.

Notice, a patriot favorite, the “exemption number:” 123456789, is not mentioned. It is strongly suggested that the reader does NOT consider this an invitation to start issuing acceptances. The contents of this article is merely scratching the surface regarding such transactions.

EXEMPTION NUMBER
When the redemption movement began in the last millennium, our knowledge was considerably less. While we believed that a private account must appear on the books to receive the funds and property that had been confiscated in 1933, the identity of that account was elusive. The exemption number was a convention to represent that account in our paperwork. We now understand that the birth number is universally applied to all accounts, trusts, securities and certificates associated with the infant’s pledge of our one true commodity, our future labor.

So it appears that the value of the Exemption ID Number has lapsed.

CREDITING

Regarding our setoffs, to “credit” is to apply the funds where desired. If we wish to credit the straw man, we might say: CREDIT THE SAME TO JOHN HENRY SMITH 123-45-6789

If we wish to credit a vendor’s account, we might say: CREDIT THE SAME TO ACCOUNT # 123456

We might say: CREDIT THE SAME TO JOHN HENRY SMITH 123-45-6789 FOR FURTHER CREDIT TO ACCOUNT # 123456

Or we might say none of that.

CHARGING AND CREDITING

To specify an entire transaction, we might say:
CHARGE THE SAME TO John Henry Smith ID # 123-45-654321
CREDIT THE SAME TO JOHN HENRY SMITH 123-45-6789
CHARGE THE SAME TO JOHN HENRY SMITH 123-45-6789”
CREDIT THE SAME TO ACCOUNT # 123456

A creditor might also choose to use none of those statements and simply rely upon our acceptance in the manner of a standard banker’s acceptance. It all depends on the circumstances and one’s understanding of the accounting.

AGAIN, READERS ARE CAUTIONED AGAINST UNDERTAKING BRAIN SURGERY WITHOUT A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF PROCESS, ENFORCEMENT AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS. DO YOU REALLY WISH TO BECOME ANOTHER STATISTIC WHO LOST THE FAMILY HOME, HAD HER WAGES GARNISHED, OR WOUND UP IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS?

Now you can see the tyranny that all men are under.

“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 5:10

But enduring it is not enough.

State Admits to Being Dependent on Child Support

reviewed by Moody Jim Rathbone

As the state of Delaware faces fiscal challenges, one area lawmaker, Tim Dukes, says the impact of delinquent child support should not be overlooked. Federal figures indicate nearly $337-million in child support went unpaid in Delaware in Fiscal Year 2014.

Not only does the state collect and hold child support for distribution, but the state corporations receive federal money for successfully collecting child support.

“Unpaid child support is a crisis for thousands of Delaware families affecting our most vulnerable population. Children not receiving support may lack even basic essentials, impacting every aspect of their lives, from their performance in the classroom to their relationships with other children.”

What he isn’t saying is that most of the debt is imaginary. The debt that is legitimate is placed on the backs of the poor population that he claims to be so concerned for.

What he isn’t saying that the state is losing out on approximately $667 million in federal subsidies because they can’t collect $337 million in child support. Are you crying for them yet?

Dukes says the GOP is working in a bipartisan way to develop legislation that would withhold money from court settlements and other financial awards and direct that money to child support obligations.

Write Dukes and tell him to get off the hand-wringing corporate gravy train of pretense. He needs to tell the truth about child support instead of telling half of it, profiting from the ‘goodwill propaganda’ that he makes up. Profiting from child support that often robs and destroys, even from a bankrupt nation that cannot afford federal subsidies for child support,  is the worst kind of tyranny.

Yet, the state can come to depend on it.

Child Support: How States Should Respond

by Jim Goeppner

For a variety of reasons, until this year, Idaho and 29 other states had not adopted the changes to the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, released in 2010. No child support payments have been at risk.

Until this year only the EU, Norway, Ukraine, Bosnia, Albania and Herzegovina have ratified the Hague Convention. No child support payments have been at risk.

President Obama has said that he will sign the convention when all 50 states have approved the changes to the UIFSA. After five years the Obama administration has decided that any states that do not adopt the changes this year will lose their funding.

It seems obvious to me that the government is threatening child support payments to force states to comply with UIFSA so that the president can sign the Hague Convention while he is still in office. The proper way for governors of a sovereign state to react would be to notify the president that since there is no indication that child support payments would be in danger whether or not the

UIFSA is signed this year, they will seek an injunction to halt withholding of federal funds until their concerns are addressed. Will they do it?

The Federal Scheme to Destroy Father-Child Relationships

by Jake Morphonios

Congress would feign admit its own dubious contribution to the suffering of America’s children. Rather, these politicians promulgate the myth that they are helping children through federal and state welfare entitlement programs. It is, in fact, these very programs which are responsible for the out of control rampage against children. Here is how the scam works.

The federal government levies taxes against citizens to redistribute as welfare entitlements among needy applicants. Congress created the Social Security Act, a section of which is called Title IV. Title IV describes how tax dollars will be distributed among the States to subsidize their individual welfare programs. In order for States to tap into the federal treasure chest, containing billions of dollars, they must demonstrate that they are complying with Title IV mandates to collect child support revenues. In other words, to get money from the federal government, each State must become a child support collection and reporting agency.

Every unwed or single mother seeking welfare assistance must disclose on her application the identities of the fathers of her children and how much child support the fathers have been ordered by a family court to pay. She must also commit to continuously reporting the father’s payments so that the State can count the money as “collected” to the federal government’s Office of Child Support Enforcement. As with all bureaucracies, this process has developed into a monstrosity that chews up and spits out the very people it was designed to help.

States have huge financial incentives to increase the amount of child support it can report to the federal government as “collected”. To increase collection efforts, States engage in the immoral practice of dividing children from their fathers in family courts. Have you ever wondered why family courts award custody to mothers in 80%-90% of all custody cases, even when the father is determined to be just as suitable a parent? It is because the amount of child support ordered by the State is largely determined by how much time the child spends with each parent. This means that the State “collects” less child support if parents share equal custody. By prohibiting fathers from having equal custody and time with their children, the State’s child support coffers are increased and federal dollars are received.

Opponents try to paint loving fathers as “deadbeat dads” for daring to challenge the mother-take-all system of family law. This is nothing more than diversionary propaganda. The concern of fathers is not that they are unwilling to support their children financially. This is not an argument against paying child support. Any father that cares about his child will do everything in his power to provide for the child. The concern is, rather, that children are being separated from their fathers by family courts because the State stands to reap huge financial rewards as a result of the father’s loss of custody. The higher the order of child support, the more money the State can collect – even if the amount ordered by the court far exceeds the reasonable needs of the child or if the father is required to take second and third jobs to keep up with outrageous support orders and escape certain incarceration. The truth is that most fathers don’t care about the financial aspects of these family court verdicts nearly as much as they care about having their time with their children eliminated for nefarious government purposes.

The root of this evil is a State-level addiction to federal tax dollars being doled out as entitlement monies by a monolithic federal government. In the wake of this horror are millions of children drowning for lack of the care, guidance, and companionship of their fathers. Statistics and empirical evidence universally confirm that children forcibly separated from their fathers by family courts are considerably more likely to suffer anxiety and depression, develop drug addiction, engage in risky sexual activity, break the law, and commit suicide. This travesty must end.

Unconstitutional federal bureaucracy creates many of the societal ills it claims to be trying to solve. There are several steps incremental steps that could be taken to restore a child’s right to the companionship of both parents. For example, citizens should insist that States abide by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. No father should be automatically deprived of his fundamental right to the custody of his children without due process of law. Being a male is not a crime. Absent a finding of true danger from a parent, family courts should order shared parenting rights and equal time sharing for divorcing parents. These rights are fundamental and should not be abridged. The automatic presumption of custody-to-the-mother is unconstitutional.

The history of America is brim with examples of the federal government denying basic rights to its citizens. Women were denied the right to vote until the women’s suffrage movement secured the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Black Americans also were denied the right to vote and suffered myriad other cruel and humiliating indignities under the law until the civil rights movement brought about desegregation, put an end to Jim Crow legislation and compelled the enactment of the 15th and 24th Amendments to the Constitution. In each of these examples, society was slow to recognize that a problem even existed or that some of our laws were unjust. It took considerable time, concerted effort, self-sacrifice and perhaps even divine providence to realign concurrent societal paradigms with the principles of liberty and justice for all.

Our generation is not exempt from similar assaults on liberty. While many just causes may stake claims for redress of grievances, one group, more than any other, pleads for immediate support. The need to defend the rights of this group of American citizens, reeling from the unjust consequences of state-sponsored oppression, is before us. It is time to stand up for the rights of children and demand their equal access to both parents.