No, that’s not a joke.  I’m serious.

Or, we could just continue to watch this institution gradually eliminate the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution, in fact the entire concept of individual rights whatsoever, in favor of social(ism) science run amok.

This post also ran amok (as you can see) but the links are valuable.

The OCSE has to go.  It’s out of control, and is hurting men, women, and children — generation after generation– while loudly proclaiming it is, instead, helping society, families and kids.

WHAT DO YOU WANT — A SOCIAL SCIENCE SOCIETY, OR LIBERTY?

Obviously, it’s either/or, not Compromise/And.  Even the experts know this:

Do government sponsored marriage promotion policies place undue pressure on individual rights?

Karen Struening

Abstract

The dominance of social science research in the debate over the Bush Administration’s Healthy Marriage Initiative may explain why questions regarding the proper role of government in regulating adult intimacy (!!!) have received little attention. Social science research focuses on outcomes such as well-being and health. In contrast, rights-based legal theory considers whether state action undermines the rights of individuals. In this article, I intend to shift the debate over marriage promotion policy from questions of child well-being to questions of individual rights. I will ask the following questions: Do individuals have a liberty interest in making their own choices about intimate relationships, such as marriage? Do federally-financed (and frequently state-run) marriage programs compromise this liberty interest? Are there any constitutional grounds for objecting to marriage promotion policy?

Either we recover the OCSE from its fatherhood-dispensing-propaganda (and fundings) — repeal (or defund) the Access/Visitation grants system entirely.   There is no question, whatever its grandiose proclamations, the system is rife with corruption, has failed, and hasn’t even reduced TANF, allegedly the purpose for its existence.

Let alone the dubious ROI for this agency — Can you spell Four Billion?

Yes, +/- Four Billion (federal incentives), courtesy the IRS, to fix families, support children by adding “fatherhood.” which as I point out elsewhere, is one of several “hoodlums” used to justify stealing time and money from honest people and transferring them to dishonest.

$4,000,000,000

I’ve uploaded (hopefully) and linke two PDFs to this post to illustrate the cost and the personnel investing themselves into the system.  One is primarily charts the other, primarily rhetoric.   Please browse the Dept of HHS/Administration for Children and Families (“ACF”)

(Federal) 

PAYMENTS TO STATES FOR CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAMS, including for FY 2012, and historic back to 2002.   Its charts speak loudly as well as this paragraph justifying some of the expense:

Promoting Access and Visitation. The budget provides $570 million over ten years to support increased access and visitation services and integrates these services into the core child support program. The first step in facilitating a relationship between non-custodial parents and their children is updating the statutory purposes of the CSE program to recognize the program’s evolving mission and activities that help parents cooperate and support their children. The proposal also requires states to establish access and visitation responsibilities in all initial child support orders. The proposal also would encourage states to undertake activities that support access and visitation. Implementing domestic violence safeguards is a critical component of this new state responsibility. These services not only will improve parent-child relationships and outcomes for children, but they also will {{??}} result in improved collections. Research shows that when fathers are engaged in the lives of their children, they are more likely to {{or is it “will”??  the program has been going on over 15 years.  Don’t we know which it is yet — “more likely to,” or “will”?}}meet their financial obligations. This creates a “double win” for children – an engaged parent and more financial security.

and paragraphs like this:

Budget Request – The FY 2012 request for Child Support Enforcement and Family Support programs of $3.8 billion reflects current law of $3.5 billion adjusted by +$305 million assuming Congressional action on several legislative proposals, including those supporting a newly proposed Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative. The Budget promotes strong family relationships by encouraging fathers to take responsibility for their children, improving distribution policies so that more of the support fathers pay reaches their children, and continuing a commitment to vigorous enforcement. The Budget increases support for states to pass through child support payments to families, rather than retaining those payments and requires states to establish access and visitation arrangements as a means of promoting father engagement in their children’s lives.*** The Budget also provides a temporary increase in incentive payments to states based on performance, which continues an emphasis on program outcomes and efficiency and will foster enforcement efforts.

**(This program has been known to promote mother ABSENCE from lives of the children after custody-switching enabled through mis-use of program funds in conflicts-of-interest with custody hearings…Despite more and more mothers becoming noncustodial, this program still remains father-centric. )

Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative

The CSE program plays an important role in facilitating family self-sufficiency and promoting responsible fatherhood. Building on this role, the FY 2012 budget includes a new Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative to encourage non-custodial parents to work, support their children, and play an active role in their children’s lives.

After I sent this document to Liz Richards, of NAFCJ.net, I got the following response:

OCSE cannot override federal and state law; it cannot initiate legal disputes without the approval of both the assumed litigants.  It cannot override standing court orders.
But this IS what the OCSE agency and been doing for years – and they believe they can get away with this fraud, because nobody is scrutinizing them.

You should not believe anything they claim about their policies and procedures which sounds good.  They have been hiding their corruption with “sounds good” analysis for  as long as I’ve been following them. They say one thing – and do the opposite.

Of the hundreds of women who contacted me each year, some are custodial mothers, and nearly none of them actually collect the support owed to them.
The local state agencies stonewall them for months and even years.

Once woman with a N. CA child support case got told by the San Fransico c.s. agency they couldn’t send her the support check because they hadn’t [earned] enough interest on it yet.  After she made strong complaints about this dishonest practice – they sent a check a few days later.

The OCSE even admits they have a policy of “retaining” undistributed but collected support to earn interest on it and to declare it “abandoned” and split this collected money 60/40 between the federal and state c.s. agencies.  (eg illegal confiscation of other people’s money).***  Even the HHS General Counsel, David Cade, admit to me this was the official policy.

I believe the whole agency should be shut down and the few vital services they have be transferred to Dept of Treasury.

Liz Richards

(**great example discovered by Richard Fine, resulting in the infamous Silva v. Garcetti lawsuit.  This extremely disturbing case over county abuse of privilege in MILLION$$ IN L.A. County CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS ALREADY COLLECTED shows how corruption responds to corruption uncovered —  Mr. Fine in jail, an attempt to intimidate him and a warning to others who might think to follow in his footsteps.  As far as I can tell, this case was eventually dropped, although eventual Mr. Fine was released from solitary coercive confinement, at age 70!)

(This BUDGET document is found at: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/olab/budget/2012/cj/CSE.pdf)

AGAIN — what ROI, what overall good really comes out of this department, as reported by anyone who is not in on some of its many scams?   She writes:  “I believe the whole agency should be shut down and the few vital services they have be transferred to Dept of Treasury.”

I’m so glad she’s come around to my way of thinking, after I read enough rhetoric to gag on justifying the elimination of child support for most kids, and the inability of actual, legitimate abused children and/or spouses (primarily mothers) to EVER get free from abuse, resulting sometimes in their deaths at the hands of a father over a court-ordered visitation and after death threats and molestation had already been identified.  Alternately, they can just be impoverished needlessly, and society can be robbed of working parents while these parents instead go to court and suffer more legal abuse and trauma, often for years.

I ALSO UPLOADED a “Reviving Marriage in America:  Strategies for Donors” philanthropy roundtable talking about the foundations backing to these movements.  File it under “what your social worker and child support advocate,  your local domestic violence agency, or local legal aid office, didn’t and won’t tell you — but should have — about who’s really behind the fatherhood movement.“)

Looking at both these documents, I have to ask:  how much priming the pump is needed to produce a few good fathers, or get child support enforced? Are these indeed producing good fathers, and if not, who gives a damn?  The jet-setting, conference-presenting, politically connected fatherhood program administrators?  The family law judges, attorneys, evaluators (basically, all AFCC membership categories) whose nonprofits profit from this arrangement?   The funeral homes, who get extra business when some Dad goes haywire after separation?  The press, who reports the casualties?

An article from the “Institute for Democracy Studies” (Sept. 2001, VOl. 2, issue 1), lead article by a “Lewis C. Daly” focused on the “Charitable Choice:  The Architecture of a Social Policy Revolution” cites the Bradley Foundation’s influence, and provides a flowchart with National Fatherhood Initiative and the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives central underneath.  They point out the “Heritage Foundation” connection (which I’ve noticed) and that a certain Kay James (directing the US Office of Personnel Management at the time — and as such placing “vast numbers of individuals throughout the White House national security apparatus, government agencies (etc.) ) endorsed the resolution of the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention (regarding wifely submission to husbands) — an endorsement that caused former President Carter to resign from this group in protest of its treatment of women.

“O Say Can You See?” what’s happened to the “land of the free” (or even the concept of the land of the free….)

“OCSE”:  CLEAN IT UP OR SHUT IT DOWN:

The more I read about this, the more outraged I get at tax dollars being used for social science rhetoric — most of it a combination of belief, myth, and confusion of results with causes.

• While promising delivery on child support — the fact is, it extorts both mothers and fathers in the courts to consume services and classes they don’t need, such as parenting education classes produced by judges-and-attorney-run nonprofits with unholy alliances with the family courts (kids turn, etc.).  (Kids Turn & look-alikes)
• It s a guaranteed formula for reducing and eliminating child support, sold under the guise of doing the opposite.
• The Access Visitation grants system, per se, while not huge — is the doorway to ever-expanding initiatives (fatherhood, marriage-promotion, etc.) — that undermine due process and individual rights.
• Its own regulations indicate that the purpose of this grants system enables ONE Person in ONE Executive Branch Office to run demonstration social science projects on the populace, through the states, as I have pointed out before in reviewing 45 CFR 303.109:   As such, it’s anti-democratic, and contrary to the purpose of having three separate branches of government, which was to counter potential tyranny.  Section (a) basically says, there’s a need to monitor these grants.  Here’s (b):

(b) Evaluation. The State: (1) May evaluate all programs funded under Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs; (2) Must assist in the evaluation of significant or promising projects as determined by the Secretary; (of HHS).

“Before his current post, he helped create and was director of the Texas Fragile Families Initiative, a statewide project involving community-based, faith-based, and public agencies to support fragile families.”

For Dr. Ronald B. Mincy, Saving `Fragile Families’ is Personal

by Michele N-K Collison

Black people will never reach economic parity if Black children have to depend on one income and White children depend on two,” says Mincy, the architect of the foundation’s “Strengthening Fragile Families Initiative.“

The multi-million dollar initiative focuses on increasing research about these poor fathers and their families, and working with policy-makers to create policies that encourage unwed parents to work together for the benefit of their children.

Since 1994, the Ford Foundation has spent a total of roughly $14.5 million on this issue. It is one of too few major foundations, according to Mincy, engaged in this work.

These days Mincy crisscrosses the nation giving speeches and meeting with child support officials and advocates for fathers as he tries to take advantage of the convergence of circumstances that has made fatherhood the issue de jour.

But there is a compelling personal reason why Mincy is so interested in this issue — he also grew up without his father. …

After graduating from Harvard, Mincy went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned his doctorate in economics in 1987. He taught economics at Swarthmore College, the University of Delaware, and Bentley College, before heading to the Urban Institute in 1987.

While at the Urban Institute, Mincy directed a policy-research project on the urban underclass. His work on poor, unwed families caught the attention of the Clinton administration and he led the Noncustodial Parents Issue Group for the Presidents Welfare Reform taskforce. The group’s mission was to figure out how welfare reform could accommodate poor men. His experiences in the Clinton administration laid the groundwork for the Fragile Families Initiative.

He’s now at Columbia, degreed, decorated, publishing and promoting.  Note the Foundation Connection throughout ….

Bio:

Dr. Ronald Mincy teaches Introduction to Social Welfare Policy; Program Evaluation; Economics for Policy Analysis; and Advanced Methods in Policy Analysis, and directs the Center for Research on Fathers, Children and Family Well-Being.

Dr. Mincy is also a co-principal investigator of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, and a faculty member of the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC).

He came to the University, in 2001, from the Ford Foundation where he served as a senior program officer and worked on such issues as improving U.S. social welfare policies for low-income fathers, especially child support, and workforce development policies; he also served on the Clinton Administration’s Welfare Reform Task Force.

This tells me, he may have had input into the Access & Visitation factor of 1996 Welfare Reform.  And, he’s as much as stated he has a chip on his shoulder from childhood.  However directed at low-income noncustodial fathers this work has become, by targeting the child support system, this re-balancing of “welfare” has been exploited by all levels of fathers (including some multi-millionaires) and has resulted in lots of noncustodial (and some homeless) mothers after processing through this wonderful child support system plus therapy-dispensing family law system.  It has pushed social science dispensaries (whether institutes or initiatives) to the top of the administrative heap.  The discussion is no longer of individual rights, due process, bias — but of outcomes, of best “practices” and “promising projects.”   Such language keeps the research $$ flowing and sets up a subject/object relationship between the researchers and the poor slobs with the actual problems and lives affected the most.

Only through the internet have we become more able to “eavesdrop” in on some of these conversations, and hear the incredible logic behind them, pick on the tone of how policymakers view the nation, of how Federal entitities attempt to set up a trainee/dog relationship with the states (good states get more treats [incentives], bad states will have treats withdrawn….  Clearly in such an environment, the obvious line of work is dog trainer — if one is not of sufficient drive, connections, inspiration, pedigree, (etc.) or luck to be the ones paying the dog trainers.

NEXT QUESTIONS:

HOW MANY FOUNDATIONS DOES IT TAKE

TO ELIMINATE THE US CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS?

Whose idea was it, to switch society’s main institutions from the concept of individual rights (eventually — at least in theory — including minorities & females, in that order) in favor of “social science” (next step — back to eugenics….)?

Whose idea was it to centralize rule under Executive Dept. initiatives (versus the original idea — three branches of government).

Whose idea was it to eliminate the restrictions on sectarian religion on public government?

Well, in my book, this is in great part, a 4-letter word:  “B.U.S.H.” (GWB), aka Government by Executive Order.

CONSIDER THE IMPACT OF THE

Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

The Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI), was established January 29, 2001, when President George W. Bush “issued twoexecutive orders related to faith-based and community organizations. The first executive order established a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The second order established centers to implement this initiative at the Department of Justice, along with the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development.  (wikipedia)

NOT a good idea for women…..

Let alone this particular President’s (and other right-wing Republicans) curious connection with the Unification Church.  Don’t laugh.  See my “Shady-shaky Foundations’ post and look at that picture of Sun Myung Moon being crowned in a US Senate building.   And rethink all this “Family” and “Marriage” promotion agenda in terms of this known money-laundering, criminal-enterprise cult headed by the world’s “True Parents.”  Or read from the Steve Hassan’s “Freedom of Mind” site on Moon/Bush:  Ongoing Crime Enterprise (2007 article) :

By the early 1980s, flush with seemingly unlimited funds, Moon had moved on to promoting himself with the new Republican administration in Washington. An invited guest to the Reagan-Bush Inauguration, Moon made his organization useful to President Reagan, Vice President Bush and other leading Republicans.

Where Moon got his cash remained one of Washington’s deepest mysteries – and one that few U.S. conservatives wanted to solve. …

…

While the criminal enterprises may have been operating at one level, Moon’s political influence-buying was functioning at another, as he spread around billions of dollars helpful to the top echelons of Washington power.

Moon launched the Washington Times in 1982 and its staunch support for Reagan-Bush political interests quickly made it a favorite of Reagan, Bush and other influential Republicans. Moon also made sure that his steady flow of cash found its way into the pockets of key conservative operatives, especially when they were most in need. […]

Throughout these public appearances for Moon, Bush’s office refused to divulge how much Moon-affiliated organizations have paid the ex-President. But estimates of Bush’s fee for the Buenos Aires appearance alone ran between $100,000 and $500,000.

Sources close to the Unification Church told me that the total spending on Bush ran into the millions, with one source telling me that Bush stood to make as much as $10 million from Moon’s organization. . . .

The senior George Bush may have had a political motive, too. By 1996, sources close to Bush were saying the ex-President was working hard to enlist well-to-do conservatives and their money behind the presidential candidacy of his son, George W. Bush. Moon was one of the deepest pockets in right-wing circles.

The “Marriage Promotion” and “Fatherhood” fanaticism definitely has Unification overtones.  I first began comprehending this summer 2009, while protesting another round of fatherhood funding at the Senate Appropriations Committee.  This was headed up by Rep. Danny K. Davis.  Naturally, I looked him up, some, and discovered the Moonie (Unification Church) connection.  I told some friends, and now they think I’m nuts for the assumption…   When our leaders start crowning kings in Senate Buildings, and don’t apologize for it – which Rep Davis did not — we have to start wondering where their heads are at.  (Hover cursor over the “Danny K. Davis” link for the incredible/incriminating details… When our leaders start play-acting coronations and it’s somehow a joke, I think it’s time for someone else to be put on the stand and questioned.

Now that I think of this, several Judges in the SF area were found in a similar charade.   Poormagazine.com alerted us to this.  Photo is from 2002 AAML (Amer. Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers) gathering, apparently.  It was accompanied by a spoof of the tune to “Camelot,” called “Familawt.”   Compare to “coronation” photo(s)

The Round Table 
Queen Dolores Carr (San Mateo) 
Queen Charlotte Woolard  (SF)
Queen Marjorie Slabach (SF)
King James Mize (Sacramento) King Gary Ichikawa (Solano)King David Haet (Solano)
Queen Beth Freeman (San Mateo) not pictured

Compare:

I’m not against a little light-hearted fun, but given the state of the family law system (and the increasing god-like attitudes found in the Executive Branch overall, towards the rest of the country), this is more than disturbing — perhaps it represents the true regret of some elected leaders and public “servants” (such as the judges/commissioners) that there is no title of royalty available, at least per our founding documents, in this U.S.A., which got its start protesting such abuses of power from England….

There is also a unification connection to an Arizona legislator, (1998 article on “Parents Day”). Sorry I’m not an Arizona resident following their elections, but here’s a 2007 article:

(www.bizjournals.com)  “Arizona state legislator and member of Unification Church weighs bid for US Congress”

The Business Journal of Phoenix — August 29, 2007
by Mike Sunnucks, The Business Journal

State Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, is considering a challenge of freshman Democratic Congressman Harry Mitchell in next year’s elections.

Anderson, who is in his seventh term in the Arizona Legislature, has formed an exploratory committee for a possible run against Mitchell.

Anderson is a Realtor and a member of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.  If elected, he would be the only member of Congress to be part of the Unification Church.

The Republican lawmaker cited Congress’ low approval ratings in considering a run.  In the Legislature, Anderson has favored tuition and school tax credits; abstinence education programs; and removing junk food and sodas from public school vending machines.

UNIFICATION CONNECTION:

Given what this particular organization represents, worldwide (criminal enterprises, money laundering, and cult activity), the simple math should tell us:   (1) The Office of Faith-based Initiative comes from Bush by Executive Order, not popular mandate (2) Bush & GOP ties close to Moon & Moon’s money.   (3) Some faith-based groups are just too danged misogynist, and turn a blind eye to wife-beating and molestation.  Some women became single to start with, because they found no way to stop this in their local communities.  Moreover, many faith-based (husband = head of the household) groups also encourage men to control the finances, thereby when they separate, actually CAUSING, rather than SOLVING, additions to the welfare role.

The co-founders of the influential National Fatherhood Initiative include the first appointee to this Office, i.e., Don Eberly.  The other co-founder of the National Fatherhood Initiative is Wade Horn.   Successor (?) Ron Haskins was instrumental in passing the Access/Visitation funding mentioned above.  Combined with the powerful influence of foundational wealth, their social-science, religious-based myths rhetoric is distributed nationwide, and also funded unwittingly

Then come back here.

The HERITAGE FOUNDATION (with Unification church ties….) has its FAMILY & RELIGION page, and objectives, including developing a rhetoric. Yep:

1. Cultivate an environment in which the permanent institutions of family and religion can flourish and fulfill their role in maintaining ordered liberty in America.
2. Develop the best research and accompanying rhetoric that will strengthen and unify the current pro-family constituency and win over new target audiences to preserve the institution of traditional marriage and restore the family to its central role.
3. Unite religious and economic conservatives more effectively around the goal of restoring the family to its central role, both legally and culturally, and reviving religious liberty.
4. Shape a healthy public discourse that appreciates the historic and continuing significance of religion and moral virtue in American civic life.  {as signified by the pedophile priest scandal, and coverups?}

THEY SAY:

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Family and religion are foundational to American freedom and the common good.** For example, the married family plays an important part in promoting economic opportunity: children raised by never-married mothers are seven times more likely to be poor when compared to children raised in intact married families. Meanwhile, religious institutions and individuals form the backbone of America’s thriving civil society, providing for the welfare of individuals more effectively than government programs. Yet the role of these institutions in maintaining ordered liberty is poorly understood, and policy and social developments have factored in undermining their important contributions.

**Not for young women, and middle-aged women honor-murdered for being too Western, or for divorcing.

**This must be why we have the First Amendment, to enable Congress — naw, let’s just work through other arms of government — to establish a state religion called “marriage and family/fatherhood”  etc….. and facilitated by some of the most misogynist groups around, including faith groups that don’t permit ordination of women, require celibacy for their priests, and believe that Eve is responsible for bringing sin into the world, primarily because she acted independently from Adam in talking to someone besides her husband.

Here’s a sample Abstract of a Heritage Foundation report on Marriage as the cure for poverty:

Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty

Published on September 16, 2010 by Robert Rector

Abstract: Child poverty is an ongoing national concern, but few are aware that its principal cause is the absence of married fathers in the home. Marriage remains America’s strongest anti-poverty weapon, yet it continues to decline. As husbands disappear from the home, poverty and welfare dependence will increase, and children and parents will suffer as a result.

The rationale for pushing fatherhood through the child support system is that these engaged fathers will then contribute child support to the home, which would then help reduce poverty.  Seems to me that using kids as child-support bait is not a good idea.   Seems to me that anything that requires THIS MUCH POLICY PUSHING (and rhetoric-production) IS NOT COST-EFFECTIVE FOR KIDS.

Has anyone considered the custody-battle factor?  When Moms go for child support, Dads go for custody and have federal help in this.  Perhaps PART of the poverty factor is that both parents are being taken out of the workforce to litigate, but only one of them is getting the federal government on HIS side in the family law venue.   Besides which child support contractors such as Maximus, Inc. (look ’em up!) have been caught in embezzlement, fraud (repeatedly, and in the millions) yet still get multi-million-dollar contracts after paying millions to settle.  I personally think that until we either make a determination to root out fraud from this system — which would have to be consistent, local, diligent, and probably done by mothers and fathers NOT in think-tanks or on the federal (county, or state) “teat,” — we can safely assume that this is where a good deal of the nation’s wealth and GDP is going.   Everyone gets a cut but the actual children….

Look at Maximus, Inc.’s range of services:

Look at one review of this group in TN, and the cases, to date, involving embezzlement & fraud:

Thursday, May 28. 2009

Maximus signs $49M Tennessee child support deal

Your private information may have just gotten more vulnerable in state of Tennessee. In a deal that is qualified as the largest state privatization deal up to this point has been awarded to “Government Health Services Provider Maximus, Inc.” to provide services that the state is paid to provide to its residents under a federally mandated social security program known as Title IV-D. (42 USC 651). The contract details, we are working on, but Maximus, Inc. will be doing the government’s job in locating absent parents, establishing paternity, carrying out support orders and medical support orders, processing interstate cases, and providing customer service. This comes as a surprise because just last month there was a Former Child Support Services Employee Arrested in Tennessee for selling confidential records.

I am in the process of obtaining the government’s documents associated with these contracts, stay tuned for more information. We have some legitimate fears of access to citizen’s private data that have not been found guilty of any crimes being placed in unregulated databases that are accessible by unsavory characters that aim to make a profit with identity theft.
Over the past several years we have noticed a climate ripe for embezzlement, identity theft, invasion of privacy, and more. Just this year the Federal government removed some protections to the taxpayer to stop the continuous growth of these agencies. The reversal of the tax payer protection policy that was originally implemented under the Budget Deficity Reduction Act of 2005, paves the way for more disastrous consquences for taxpayers.

Just in June 2008, Delaware Child Support Program Employees were caught stealing from taxpayers and the children. Just over a year ago, we demonstrated how Theft was Running Rampid in State Child Support Programs. The widespread lack of accountability in these programs continues, without sufficiently limiting access to private data and ensuring digital fingerprints are placed on all data in the various systems nationwide, there will continue to be fraud on the taxpayers and the participants of Child Support Enforcement programs.

The Child Support Enforcement program continues to be plagued over the past several years of documented fraud, identity theft, embezzlement, bribery schemes, and more.

Here’s a report from Canada complaining that this giant company has already run into problems in 5 US states:

B.C. Contractor Maximus Mishandled Public Funds in U.S.

Liberals, as part of privatizing push, gave a $324 million contract to a firm with a history of controversy in five states. A TYEE SPECIAL REPORT

By Scott Deveau, 3 Dec 2004, TheTyee.ca

In its move to privatize PharmaCare and the Medical Service Plan, the provincial (CANADIAN) government hired a company that was found by the state of Wisconsin to have misappropriated public funds.

The same company, Virginia-based Maximus Ltd.,  has been embroiled in controversies in four other states, involving accusations of mismanagement, overspending or improperly receiving information while seeking a contract. … …

 U.S.-based giant

The company, which is one of the largest providers of outsourced business and information technology to governments, has 280 offices in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and more than 5,000 employees worldwide. It provides a range of services from welfare, educational and judicial programs, to debt collection agencies on student loans and child support.

Bill Berkowitz tracks a lot of conservative funding, and wrote a famous article nailing Bush’s payoffs to certain individuals pushing marriage promotion (Wade Horn, Maggie Gallagher, etc.).  This 2001 report Prospecting Among the Poor:   Welfare Privatization (co. May, 2001, Applied Research Center) summarizes the situation and deals with the Maximus, Inc. group, first, including its troubling practices in Wisconsin:

Discriminatory Practices

The Milwaukee Business Journal reports that, on top of the company’s financial shenanigans, “16 formal gender or racial discrimination complaints have been filed with the Milwaukee office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, against Maximus or one of its subsidiaries. In addition…as many as a dozen internal grievances were filed with the company’s human resources office related to unfair promotion practices.”34

Linda Garcia is an organizer with 9to5, a national nonprofit grassroots organization working to empower women through securing economic justice. Garcia has observed the activities of Maximus first-hand from the front lines in Milwaukee. “The public has not been served well by privatization, “ she says. “The standards of accountability and monitoring have been practically non-existent. We’re not seeing decent services provided to the community or a decrease in poverty or homelessness.” Garcia, who has been working on behalf of the women involved in the discrimination suit against Maximus, believes discriminatory practices “may be widespread” at Maximus’ MaxStaff entity, which seems to be “funneling women to low-paying jobs in order to quickly receive the bonus staff gets for placements.”35

2001 Prospecting Among the Poor- Welfare Privatization~ Berkowitz

The bonus principle cited here exists in virtually any custody battle; in court cases easily become the “kickback” principle, opportunities to overcharge or double-bill, and opportunities to “buy” a decision, especially as the family law system is known for wide discretion given to judges.

In the Access and Visitation grants (and the expanding other grant systems they attract or work alongside, through the child support agency, as in Texas), the presence of (poorly-monitored) federal incentives, multiple nonprofit sub-grantees, and program facilitators with connections to the courts, makes an atmosphere ripe for case-steering when the stakes are, children and child support.

So I recommend scanning this report and considering its implications.  I’m glad that people like Mr. Berkowitz have reported on events that took place while I, and other families, were struggling with their individual cases, and also to survive in their own households.  Excerpts:

INTRODUCTION

Even before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 was signed, sealed, and delivered to the states, the conservative Reason Foundation’s William Eggers and John O’Leary had lauded “aggressive” privatization initiatives in New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Georgia.

New York Governor George Pataki, chair of the Privatization Task Force of the Republican Governors Association, had argued at a meeting of governors that it was time for the immediate repeal of federal barriers to privatization at the state and local levels:

…

The privatization of welfare was a triumph for many Republican as well as some Democratic governors, and for conservative national and state legislators.

Policy analysts at right-wing think tanks and policy institutes were also elated. In a 1997 speech, Lawrence W. Reed, President of the conservative Midland, Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, touted privatization as the wave of the future:

….

Bernard Picchi, growth stocks analyst for Lehman Brothers, estimated that the potential market (for welfare privatization) could easily be more than $20 billion a year. Others placed the target figure as high as $28 billion, more than 10% of the national expenditure on welfare recipients.15

…CHARITABLE CHOICE:

In addition to unleashing predatory corporate forces, the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996 contains the first enactment of a concept conservatives call “charitable choice.” Far from expanding anyone’s choices, “charitable choice” forces state and local governments to include religious organizations in their pool of bidders for service-delivery contracts.

Cathlin Siobhan Baker, Co-Director of The Employment Project, explains although religious organizations have received government funding over the years for emergency food programs, childcare, youth programs, and the like, they were expressly prohibited from religious proselytizing. Baker writes: “Gone are the prohibitions regarding government funding of pervasively sectarian organizations. Churches and other religious congregations that provide welfare services on behalf of the government can display religious symbols, use religious language, and use religious criteria in hiring and firing employees.”50

 …

On January 29, [2001] amidst great fanfare and surrounded by Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders, President George W. Bush signed an executive order cre- ating a new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. As governor of Texas, Bush has been a strong advocate for charitable choice, supporting the notion that faith-based organizations take over a large part of the provision of a broad array of government services. One of the things the new White House Office will do is help religious groups compete for billions of dollars in government grants.

During the presidential campaign, Bush called for “armies of compassion” fielded by “faith-based organizations, charities and community groups” to help aid America’s poor and needy. In an opinion piece for USA Today, Bush laid out his plan for taking “the next bold step in welfare reform,” proposing $80 billion over 10 years so that faith-based organizations can become “our nation’s most heroic armies of compassion.” He also proposed a $200 million federal initiative to “sup-port community and faith-based groups that fortify marriage and champion the role of fathers.”51 The ceremony at the White House was only Bush’s first step toward fulfilling his campaign promises.

Right-wing ideologues find charitable choice attractive because it not only reduces government involvement in service-delivery but also injects their religious and “moral framework” into the welfare debate. Welfare is no longer a question of poverty or the economic inequities in our society; the debate is framed within such time-honored right-wing moral premises as an epidemic of out-of-wedlock births and the lack of personal responsibility – behaviors that conservatives believe contribute to the general moral breakdown of our society.

Not only has the web changed the workplace, it has most certainly also changed government.  However the policies forced on the poorer population are geared to the industrial economy, a 9 to 5 mentality, a public education mentality, a faith-based mentality.

The welfare concept eliminates and discourages single parents from supporting themselves in creative ways (including through this internet).  Its assumption that poverty has to do mostly with fatherlessness is nonsensical, and dishonest — when many times it may relate instead to a present, and abusive, father.  Failing to distinguish one case from another, and listening primarily to their own rhetoric, social scientists in key positions + political appointees force basic “solutions” on the entire society, and stick society with the bill as well.   It is basically taxation without representation.

The only people escaping this taxation without representation are those profiting from it — who run or own nonprofit businesses, have or benefit from private foundations or wealth — or in some other way have learned to maximize profits, reduce expenses, and make their expenses, including conferences on how to keep the systems going, tax deductions.

These people are not uniformly two-parent income, or even stable-marriage families.  Heck, some (including Presidents & legislators) are not even faithful to their own wives.    So how dare they preach to the rest of us, who are not quite so wealthy, or don’t have backing to get into political office, on our morals and work ethic?

In the “Payments to States for Child Support Enforcement and Family Support Programs” (links above), on page “271” there is an Appropriations History Table, from 2002 through 2009.  Its simple, (two-column) and speaks volumes.     The costs range from $2+ billion to $4+ billion, and always with an advance of $1billion or so.  ALWAYS the appropriation is higher than budget.

The Philanthropist Roundtable (Reviving Marriage in America, link above) lists these benefits to Marriage.  Are you in agreement with all of them?  If not, do you want your IRS payments to go towards pushing marriage education, (let alone abstinence education for parents), do you want families EXTORTED into high-stakes custody litigation through the child support system, do you really believe that we should have such foundations running our lives through major institutions?

If not, take some time to read the links I’ve provided here, which prompted this piecemeal protest post.   Really these are TAX issues.   Perhaps more of us should focus on establishing foundations and stop working W-2 jobs;; there has to be a better way.  Anyhow, rich conservative foundations declare:

The Benefits of Marriage 

Benefits for Adults

1. Married men and women have lower mortality rates and tend to have better overall health than their single counterparts.

2. Married couples tend to have more material resources, less stress and better social support than people who are not married.

3. Married men are less likely to abuse alcohol.***

[[potential cause of divorce — wife gets tired of living with a chronic alcoholic.  Hence, those who stay married might indeed drink less…]]

4. Both married men and women report significantly lower levels of depression and have better overall psychological well-being than

their single, divorced, widowed and cohabitating counterparts.**

[[Exceptions:  marriages with abuse, or chronic infidelity.  Which definitely is depressing and affects psychological well-being!]]

5. Married African-Americans have better life satisfaction than those who are single.

[[! ! !  How are these people checking out African-American’s “life satisfaction” quotient?   Apparently, it’s important not to have too many angry, dissatisfied African-Americans around. After all, the prisons are already overcrowded, and with US already the largest per-capita jailor on earth, what’s a ruling elite to do if the anger spills over?]]

6. Married men report higher wages than single men and have been found to be more productive and more likely to be promoted.

[[So women should marry and stay married to encourage men to work.  Single working parents, single nonparents should also contribute to the federal marriage movement, because without  marriage, men are simply not as motivated to work.  Potential cause — the wife at home is supporting the guy, or the wife at WORK is supporting the guy.  What about married mother’s wages or likelihood of promotion?  Knowing the high potential for divorce, women should (sure, yeah….) most definitely go for marriage, because it’s good overall for the nation, even if they sacrifice their financial futures post-marriage, ending up eventually on welfare, in court, and fighting for custody of their children with a federally-funded fatherhood mandate run through the child support system?]]

7. Married women tend to have substantially more economic resources than single women. The economic benefits of marriage are especially strong for women who come from disadvantaged families.

[[I really wonder where this statistic comes from…  There are obviously exceptions, some of them in abusive religious marriages, some where, at times, a woman was sought from another country to make some babies for a US resident.]]

Benefits for Children

1. Children from families with married parents are less likely to experience poverty than children from single-parent or cohabitating families.

2. Children born to cohabitating couples have a higher chance of experiencing family instability, a factor that has been linked to poor child well-being.

3. Children from married, two-parent families tend to do better in school than those who grow up in single-parent or alternative family structures.

4. Children from intact, two-parent families are less likely to experience emotional-behavioral problems.

5. The more time children live in a married, two-parent home, the less likely they are to use drugs.

6. Children who grow up in a married, two-parent family are less likely to have children out of wedlock in their future relationships.

7. Women with married parents are less likely to experience a high-conflict marriage.

8. Single mothers report more conflict with their children than married mothers.

[**depending on date of this report, one factor may be this agenda being run through the family law system to start with — as it has been since 1996 at least, which guarantees ongoing court litigation where one parent wants to struggle, and the case was flagged for program funding to help ONE side do this.]

9. The rate of infant mortality is lower among married parents.

10. Children living with their married, biological parents are less likely to experience child abuse.**

[[see note on married men drink less.  Child abuse by either parent is a deal-breaker for most marriages.  And, what about also the ongoing situations where the child experiences abuse on visitations with the noncustodial parent — such cases would fall under “not living with their married biological parents” — but who is the perpetrator?  If someone is willing to abuse a child initially, whether married or single, would life be better if such parents were together, and the abuser had daily access??  This statements imply doesn’t handle many situations.]]

• What this entire report fails to address is that domestic violence can turn lethal within marriage, or leaving a marriage.
• Moreover, an on-line “find” (search) in this report of the word “father” (which covers fathers, fatherhood, fathering etc.) shows 23 occurrences.  The corresponding search on “mother,” only 7.  That’s imbalanced, and typical of certain sites sponsored by conservative foundations.

A token reference to the fact that for some, marriage has problems occurs here, in context of the tail end of an inset about marriage education movement.  Notice, no mention is made that some marriages result in death by femicide.  This is virtual denial…..

“Feminist leaders at the time emphasized the dark side of marriage for women whose husbands refused to be equal partners to their working wives and women trapped in abusive relationships. {{note order:  not equal partners, and just a token, vague reference to “abusive” which is then dropped.  Completely:…}}

The mainline Christian  churches emphasized pastoral sensitivity to divorced people and single parents, which seemed inconsistent with proclaiming the unique value of life- long marriage. {{meaning, to be consistent, churches who believe in lifelong marriage should be harsh to divorced people and single parents?  which harshness of course would be inconsistent with the gospel record of their hero, Jesus’, sensitivity, including to a woman caught in adultery, a poor widow, a woman with an issue of blood, and so forth…}}

The conservative Christian churches still preached about life- long marriage but were not organizing programs for couples to help them achieve such relationships.”

OK, so the Bradley Foundation acknowledges there are churches with thoughts about divorce.   But ….

Do we or do we not have other religions in this country?  (But none mentioned here?).  How about Islam — what about Shari’a?    Does marriage promotion apply here also?  Because the Muslim and the Christian/Jewish (let alone agnostic/atheist) concepts of marriage are radically different from each other. Should the US move towards the Shari’a model because marriage is “good” for a nation?   How could any discussion of this topic among conservative foundations just “forget” other major world religions, let alone that First Amendment is intended to protect religious choice — not push one variety of it on all of us through governmental institutions.!

Nonie Darwish at Temple University (April 2011) — these are Youtubes of a presentation, and a following Q&A.  I haven’t viewed them (fresh off a Google search to you), but have read at least one of her books:

Nonie Darwish:  Shari’a Law & America at Temple University

Q&A to the above presentation

This is another reason why the US should NOT allow religious groups to be grabbing federal funds to collect child support and promote fatherhood.  What if the group favors shari’a law, which goes like this:

Shari’a, that is Muslim law, controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.

In the Western  World (including America ) Muslim men are starting to demand Shari’a Law under which wives can not obtain a divorce and men have full and complete control of their children.  It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities and other parts of the Western world are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shari’a law.

By publicizing the information below, I hope to help enlightened American and other women avoid becoming slaves under Shari’a Law:
1. In the Muslim faith, a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old, consummating the marriage by 9. 
2. A dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman who becomes a slave. 
3. Even though a woman is abused she cannot obtain a divorce. 
4. To prove rape, a woman must have four male witnesses. 
5. Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry.  The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family. 
6. Husbands can beat their wives ‘at will’ and do not have to say why the beating occurred. 
7. A husband is permitted to have 4 wives and a temporary wife for a limited period at his discretion. 

The goal of radical Islamists is to impose Shari’a law on the world, ripping Western law and liberty in two.  If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual.  Islamic law (Shari’a) teaches that non-Muslims should be subjugated or killed in this world.

Peace and prosperity for one’s children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.

While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics – one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others..

While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with G-d, Shari’a advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism.

This woman should know — and has earned the right to speak on it.   The blurb:

“Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza  before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father died while leading covert attacks on Israel. He was a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed with his family in Gaza.  When he died, he was considered a “shahid,” a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned Nonie and her family an elevated position in Muslim society.  But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own Muslim culture and upbringing and later abandoned Islam.” (For Christianity, incidentally).

What about a woman who has escaped a violent marriage, and may wish to partake, for once, in a better one — but because of the family law system, is doomed to struggling with custody until all kids turn 18?   Should she suffer, should the next potential partner suffer alongside, because some people believe that the problem with this country is out-of-wedlock fertility, unhappy AFrican American couples (read the list!) and of course the cause of child abuse and poverty is fatherlessness – not failure to prosecute child abusers properly, or economic policies that exploit wage-earners and outsource child support collections to corporations like Maximus, Inc., famous for fraud, gender discrimination, embezzlement, and poor performance?

We do not need cults (Unification Church), Crooks, or Misogynist Faith Institutions running the child support system as if there was a war on fatherhood by virtue of women having gained some options in the mid to late 1900s, including to vote, and an uphill fight that was.

We do not need another caste system — or royalty — created through welfare policies based on myths, which then undermine the primary documents on which our country has been founded by trying to tip the court favor towards fathers based on a job-based workforce system and inferior educational system.

As Berkowitz wrote in 2001 (above), Welfare Privatization is a cash cow, a big one, and Charitable Choice may fall hard on women overall, given how many religious groups already do.   Those in the (expanding) bureaucracy get to inhabit lofty positions writing about the poor while those poor often live lives at risk from their partners, their neighborhoods, and the myth that the legal system exists for them — and not for those running it.

OCSE – TANF – FATHERHOOD PROMOTION, MARRIAGE PROMOTION — PRIVATE CONTRACTORS CAUGHT IN EMBEZZLEMENT AND FRAUD — GOP PRESIDENTIAL CONNECTIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL MONEY-LAUNDERING, CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE (the Unification Church) & CULT — and PRIVATE WEALTH (whether honestly or dishonestly gotten) RUNNING AND RESTRUCTURING GOVERNMENT, HIGHER EDUCATION, LOWER (EARLY CHILDHOOD) EDUCATION, AND SO ON.

Let’s begin with this Eliminating this Child Support System — which garnishes wages and has the power to put a man or a woman in jail, or homeless, if they don’t pay up, farms out collections to companies known for gender, race discrimination, fraud, embezzlement, and poor performances (Maximus), selling private information and in general tearing up the lives of innocent people (but still getting multi-illion$ contracts).  While its federal fatherhood focus is indeed sexist, it is also  equipped to turn on EITHER gender, depending on the case, and get away with it.  Which, while the original concept was — child support — the “evolution” of it is becoming more and more like an episode of “Aliens” only more frightening.

Which is just too big and too entrenched.

Sounds like a good idea, on the surface:  I briefly took welfare (food stamps) and the county went for the father to pay themselves back.  They could be the “bad guy” in the situation, protecting me.  But in practice, I see, they’ve had a makeover, and are more interested in being the nice guy (and enrolling men in fatherhood programs, access visitation programs, etc.).

I thought it was a great transitional idea immediately after marriage to have someone besides myself (for a change) asking the father of my children to pull his own weight, like I was, and to do so without in-home assault & battery privileges.  We got a child support order when I got welfare help (rather than ask him for help myself).   Not having the operational structure laid out in front of me, I thought that my getting OFF the system would be the end of the story, and they could go their way, and I mine, end of acquaintance. What did I know about the federal incentives, or how the interest income — of pooled, undistributed collections — was a real low-hanging fruit for the operation, and by withdrawing

Not so, not with all these grant programs and federal incentives flying around the place; not when within my own state, the same jurisdiction that basically spawned the family law industry was caught with its pants down, sitting on millions of collected child support (and its interest) until one father and one attorney caught them at this (John Silva, Richard Fine).    

SO, LET’s ELIMINATE — OR AT LEAST BOYCOTT — THE ENTIRE AGENCY.  HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS NOT NEED CHILD SUPPORT.    KNOW WHAT IT MEANS IN ADVANCE.  WARN MOTHERS LEAVING VIOLENT RELATIONSHIPS.   AND TELL YOUR LOCAL LEGISLATOR (FIND OUT IN ADVANCE IF HE OR SHE IS ON A “NATIONAL FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE” LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE — MANY ARE…) THAT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!  If a program takes over $4 BILLION just to enforce, and is still resulting in increased welfare loads, is not well-tracked, and has already been caught in repeated scandals — then it’s simply not worth the investment.

Mothers of minor children can only do so much, but one thing we can do is boycott (boycott seeking child support if you can.  Or marriage — or sex (believe me, it’s been discussed in some groups I know) — or the family law system.  You might get dragged in, but don’t go voluntarily — and publicize — put the warning labels out on blogs — they won’t reach mainstream media — and encourage them to find another way to live; there has to be one.

Decent Single Mothers AND Decent single Fathers AND decent non-parents (single or married) should figure out what we have in common, start asking hard questions about this OCSE agency and how it spends its funds.  Meanwhile, we should work TOGETHER (unilaterally) to boycott it until it gets the message we are serious.

Most will not, or cannot, because their lives are already so entwined in and dependent upon this system, whether for work, for their kids’ school, or they are simply already employed by the huge bureaucracy.  Or, their free time weekends is soaked up volunteering at the local faith-based organization…

FOUNDATIONS AND WELFARE POLICY:

Foundation after Foundation are writing the policy, through government institutions….  When one considers what foundations are, to start with, tax-exempt, one wonders about the arrangement.  The Lynde and Larry Bradley Foundation (who published the “Marriage Guidebook — strategy for donors” I linked to, above) also is sponsoring another welfare think-tank in Wisconsin, with the “same old” players included that re-wrote welfare to include more Dads.   Hmm.  Wasn’t Wisconsin having LOTS of fiscal/political problems recently?

During the conference, an eclectic group of national thinkers will address the intersection between welfare policy and issues such as:  parental involvement, especially fatherhood; {{now WHY doesn’t that surprise me?}} child well-being; marriage and divorce; family living arrangements; and non-marital sex, pregnancy, and child birth.  Attendees will gain a better understanding of what the state of Wisconsin — and the nation as a whole — can (and can’t) do to build a welfare policy that has strong, stable families at its center.

The discussions will be moderated by former White House and Congressional welfare-policy advisor Ron Haskins of theBrookings Institution in Washington, D.C.  The luncheon speaker will beWade F. Horn, a former Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee substantially supports WPRI.