Kenya N. Rahmaan
Most of us have witnessed or read about people changing history and their impact on society. Often, the story depicted is that of an Anglo-Saxon, especially on American soil. Only later to find out that the actual creator was a Black or a person of African descent. Needless to say, not on my watch.
Imitation is NOT the best form of flattery when your work is not cited and is used to spread lies that are detrimental to already disadvantaged and disenfranchised Americans. As I explained in my book, The Child Support Hustle®️, Title IV-D of the Social Security Act establishes a state-federal partnership to provide child support services. States must establish a child support program as a condition for receiving federal funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (Lee D. Morhar & Richard Zorza, 2017). Although shared parenting and father’s rights organizations have worked hard to link Title IV-D funding to visitation orders, the two issues have nothing to do with each other.
However, a grant pays each jurisdiction approximately $10 million annually to promote equal parenting time when parents are not living together. According to the Office of Child Support Services or OCSS, each year, about $10 million in mandatory grant funding goes to states and territories to operate the Access and Visitation or AV program, which helps increase noncustodial parents’ access to and time with their children. The AV program directly contradicts what people in the shared parenting and father’s rights community claim are the reason judges reduce visitation and increase child support in Title IV-D cases.
Founder of Americans for Equal Shared Parenting, Mark Ludwig, has been a ringleader in pushing the narrative that somehow judges benefit financially from denying divorcing fathers time with their children by setting unnecessarily high child support orders and meager time with their children.
In a speech Ludwig gave to the Texas Legislature in 2019, he talked about the Title IV-D program and how the program negatively affects parents who are not involved in the welfare program,
If you can offset the parenting time, now you have a justification for why you need to have child support orders. And that’s what’s happening right now is if you’ve got the fox guarding the hen house. People who are involved in the process are influencing judges to try to get them to give offsetting orders so they can qualify for their incentive money, basically to justify their jobs. So that’s what’s created the whole problem.
Unfortunately, the information they received was incorrect to all who witnessed the speech in person and watched it later. There was a problem with Title IV-D incentives, how the government distributed the incentives, and the officiants deciding child support amounts, but not for the reasons Ludwig mentioned. The problems exist because they were created in 1996, and we can thank former President Bill Clinton and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich for passing the famous or infamous Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.
People will probably always credit the bill to Clinton, but the plan to change welfare as the country ‘knew it.’ was in the pipeline for decades. The Act, known as PRWORA, was a comprehensive bipartisan welfare reform plan that would dramatically change the nation’s welfare system into one that required work in exchange for time-limited assistance (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation or ASPE, 1996). Not only was welfare reform a part of one of the most extensive public safety net bills in US history, but the legislation changed how the country handled unmarried, low-income parents.
The ASPE explained that the law contained the following as part of the reform:
As we can see, nothing the bill’s drafters purposely omitted language to include custody arrangements for unmarried parents. Subsequently, almost thirty years later, minus any significant revisions to the PWRORA, everything has stayed the same. The reason that politicians excluded wording that would involve children having interactions with both parents is simple. https://thechildsupporthustle.com/dear-black-face-of-white-supremacy-larry-elder/
Child support is a welfare recovery program. As such, shared parenting or what is best for the development of children is the furthest issue on the minds of the authors writing the bill. Money is the only motivation for the government whenever poor people are considered a taxpayer burden. The significance of clarifying the difference between Title IV-D and non-Title IV-D cases is easy to understand.
When the government decides to change the child support system, people must know which cases are affected and why. It is irresponsible, if not an outright con job, to convince parents that two completely different types of child support cases, funded by two separate government budgets, are treated the same. What is even more egregious is that alleged leaders in a sensitive movement are sharing information, declaring that judges are forcing parents to pay more child support for less time with their children. These deceptions can lead to tragedies, as we are all too familiar with.
Just like we demand accountability from family court officials, we must also hold family court advocates accountable. Only a few short years ago, parents realized that the government was the culprit in The Child Support Hustle through the Title IV-D program. In a matter of a few short years and a lot of lies and deception, parents are back hating each other, fathers believe they have no rights to their children, and Title IV-D is once again a mystery because of convoluted messaging for personal gain. None of these backward steps benefit the children.
References:
References
Morhar, L. D., & Zorza, R. (2017, November). Self-Represented litigation network resource guide. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.srln.org%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2Fattachments%2FSRLN%2520Title%2520IV-D%2520Resource%2520Guide%2520Revised%252012%25202017_0.pdf&psig=AOvVaw3MaJQpx5VF0Eracp_BbrzM&ust=1734896289028000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CAYQrpoMahcKEwjQ6ZO5zrmKAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBA. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.srln.org/system/files/attachments/SRLN%20Title%20IV-D%20Resource%20Guide%20Revised%2012%202017_0.pdf
Office of Child Support Enforcement. (2023, September 26). Access and visitation (AV). Office of Child Support Services. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/css/grants/current-grants/access-and-visitation-mandatory-grants
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. (1996, August 31). The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. ASPE. https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/personal-responsibility-work-opportunity-reconciliation-act-1996
