| Mon 2002 10 21 Below is a transcript of my radio
commentary this week (recorded Friday) for the Free Congress Foundation, available for
listening and downloading at http://www.fcfnewsondemand.org/.
An archive of my previous commentaries, also available for
listening and downloading, can be found by going to
http://www.fcfnewsondemand.org/search.asp and
searching under my name on the drop-down menu.
Stephen Baskerville
Gov. Davis & the Exploitation of Children
California Governor Gray Davis has just vetoed a bill that would have restored due
process of law to thousands of wrongly-accused men. These men must pay the state’s
crushing child support for children whom DNA testing shows they did
not father. He
did it, naturally, "for the children."
Or so he says. More likely he did it for the federal money. In fact, Governor Davis
confesses the bill would put California "at risk of losing up to $40 million in
federal funds."
Given California’s zeal in jailing men who cannot pay impossible
child support
burdens, it is inescapable that innocent men will go to jail to fill the state’s
coffers. (The state will then get more federal funding for the prisoners.)
Most child support orders are entered by default. The men never have a chance to prove
their innocence and never know they are accused of fatherhood until they are ordered to
pay. By then it is too late.
The injustice of forcing men to pay for children they did not father has kindled public
indignation. But it is only the tip of the iceberg.
Child support was created for men who abandon the offspring they have sired, a
relatively small number. But it has been hijacked by special interests and turned into a
subsidy on divorce, forcing millions of men to pay for the stealing of their own children.
In the case of false paternities,
child support often subsidizes adultery.
States also receive federal payments based on how much
child support passes through
their hands. Officials therefore have an incentive to squeeze
child support out of any
parent (or non-parent) they can find. Like most states, California makes a tidy profit.
Through federal taxes, we are all paying to subsidize divorce, unwed motherhood, and
adultery. Our taxes make family breakdown profitable for state governments.
No policy based upon lies, deceptions, and false accusations can benefit anyone: it
cannot be good for the children, and it cannot be good for government ethics.
None of this is really "for the children"; it is for the grown-ups. Governor
Davis does not love other people’s children. But his government can make money off
them. Once the government can exploit children for profit, the government will get
children wherever it can find them. And no child is safe.
For FCF News on Demand, this is Stephen Baskerville |
