Election review and male voter participation - Part 3

Part 2: Welfare reform -- No room for Daddy?

by Bill Harrington

Welfare reform proposals being offered by Congress and the White House contain an unfortunate omission -- they fail to give children a father. Welfare reform cannot be accomplished unless reformers are willing to put fathers back in the home.

7 steps to welfare reform and healthy children

The AFC plan gives children a father, and makes mothers and fathers both financially responsible for the children they bear. Under the present system and under all "reform" proposals, mothers collect benefits for having children out of wedlock and bear no responsibility for repaying those benefits. Until the person who actually receives the benefits is held responsible for repaying the cost of those benefits, welfare will continue to be an incentive for having children out of wedlock. And, until children are allowed to have fathers, they will continue to be at high risk for school drop-out, delinquent behavior, and unwed, teenage parenthood.

AFC makes the following proposals

Custody: The father should be the placement of first choice if the mother applies for AFDC. This simple change in procedure will immediately cut the AFDC roles in half, save government millions of dollars, and provide children with solid, loving homes.
Paternity establishment: Establish a legal link between mother, father and child at the time that paternity is established. Forms used to establish paternity should also lay the groundwork for a custody/visitation arrangement.
Financial child support: Both parties should be held responsible for supporting the child according to their ability to earn. Financial child support obligations should be assigned to both parties based on their ability to earn. This means that mothers who now receive AFDC-related benefits will bear some of the responsibility for repaying government for those benefits, making the AFDC/welfare lifestyle less desirable.
Accountability: Recipients of AFDC benefits should face some form of accountability for how those benefits are spent. AFDC benefits should accrue to the benefit of the children, as should financial child support payments. Some form of accountability is required for all other government third-party payments.
Incentives for payment of financial child support: States should be required to implement custody and visitation presumptions that are proven methods of encouraging voluntary compliance with financial child support laws. Mothers report in census data that fathers who have joint physical custody pay child support at rates exceeding 90 percent. Fathers who have "visitation" pay at rates approaching 80 percent.
Inability to pay financial child support: Due to unemployment or underemployment, many obligors fall behind in financial child support payments. giving those obligors preference at employment agencies enhances the possibility that they will resume support payments. A system of prioritizing should also include any person who is the sole support of a family.
Financial child support -- poorly trained and uneducated parents: Job training and skills enhancement programs should be provided to parents who are unable to meet their financial child support obligations. These parents should be required to reimburse government for the cost of their training. The federally funded Parents Fair Share program has been very successful -- 90 percent compliance in AFDC cases.
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