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Excerpted from the Washington Times, 03 JUN 00 p. A4
Gore favors forcing dads into supporting
Vice President Al Gore yesterday told a national fatherhood summit that he would boost child support enforcement as the "next step in welfare reform" if he is elected president.
We've been requiring work and support of the mothers; let's require it of the fathers," he told the National Fatherhood Initiative's third summit.
He said he would urge credit card companies "to deny credit to any parent who owes a substantial amount of child support."
"Deadbeat dads should pay what they owe to their children, or they will leave home without it," he said parodying the American Express credit-card ad.
Mr. Gore also pledged that all federally funded fatherhood programs would be required to have provisions to stem domestic violence.
He said, "every father needs to understand that being a dad means respecting the mother of your children."
When the vice-president that "only one in four parents who owe child support actually pays that child support," an unidentified man in the audience yelled "That's a lie." Federal data shows that "70% of fathers pay child support," the man said.
Gore joked about whether the heckler "was on the program later" and repeated his data, clarifying that he was "not talking about those who have court orders being enforced against them."
AFC Notes
- If there is no order, there is no support owed. The fact that there is no order does not mean that support is not being paid. Further, data reveal that 50% of mothers do not want child support, typically because they do not want the father involved in the child's life.
- Child support is premised on the termination of a parent's right to care for their own children and incorporates an order to pay someone else to perform that duty. What crime has the terminated parent committed to lose the inalienable right to the care, custody and nurture of their own children?
- The federal child support program is already the most expansive of any federal program and Gore is going to expand it more?
- The federal government does not have any fatherhood programs, they only have domestic violence and child support collection programs. Any fatherhood programs Gore does initiate will be subordinate to feminist child support and domestic violence programs.
- "Being a dad means respecting the mother of your children?" Even if she is a drug addict, drug dealer, alcoholic, prostitute or whore? Sorry, Mr. Vice-President, it does not mean that. Furthermore, personal respect is earned, not assigned because of gender or elected office. (Respect for the office is substantially different from personal respect, as is individual respect... it is earned.) Wait'll Jerry Springer hears you think that being a dad means respecting the mothers that appear on his show! It's the only way to be a dad. Yeah, right!
- This is what Gore said to people who support fathers. Imagine how he portrays his vision of fatherhood to the feminists!
Liebermann's book on child support
As you all know, Al Gore has picked Sen. Joseph Lieberman as his VP candidate.
Searching Amazon.com:
Out of Print -
Child Support in America : Practical Advice for Negotiating and Collecting a Fair Settlement by Joseph I. Lieberman.
Lieberman also wrote the forward in "Small Change : The Economics of Child Support" by Andrea H. Beller, et al. 1993.
Here are some of Lieberman's quotes from the forward:
"The failure of absent parents, mainly fathers, to pay child support is a national scandal..."
He incorrectly interprets the Census Bureau figures, which Braver all alerted us to.
Lieberman boasts about how the media has picked up on "deadbeat dads and the kids they've left behind."
Lieberman speaks of the book "I have rarely seen so thorough and so well-documented an analysis of a public-policy problem."
"...the authors show that child support awards, despite more than 10 years of legislative and judicial activism, remain low and have actually declined when compared to the father's ability to pay. They also demonstrate that child support awards are generally too low to match the actual costs of raising children in today's world."
"They make a compelling case...about the need to require awards from all fathers, no matter how little money they make, adding criminal penalties for nonsupport to federal child support statutes..."
"[The authors] also give evidence of the value of such child support enforcement tools as liens against property, automatic wage withholding, and criminal penalties, suggesting that states and the federal government would do well to ensure their widespread use."
"A denial of child support is a denial of love..."
"Just as the failure of fathers to pay child support on a massive scale has contributed to a host of social problems...the more effective collection of child support by government will help..."
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