# The Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act

- Link: https://thechildsupporthustle.com/the-deadbeat-parents-punishment-act/
- Published: 2024-05-06T14:23:35+00:00
- Author: MsRockMon

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August 20, 2014  ⌊\"\"⌉

 

Kenya N. Rahmaan

 

In an effort to combat alleged abuses of the welfare system, the U.S. government
launched a welfare recovery system.  The system, known today as the Child Support
Enforcement Agency, was revamped in 1998 courtesy of former President Bill Clinton.
According to CNN.com (1998), the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act entails felony 
punishment for a parent who moves to another state or country with the intention
of evading child support payments.  The law was transparent in its meaning and purpose
when implemented.  The punishments were made clear as well.

 

If a debt remained unpaid for over a year or was greater than $5,000, punishments
of a possible prison sentence and fines would be imposed on the guilty parent.  
No matter where you find the law written, it is clear that a parent must willfully
fail to pay child support as opposed to being unable to pay child support because
of financial hardship. There are several points made by government officials that
specified the intentions of the reformed child support program and the new law shortly
after the re-introduction of the program.  For example, the reintroduced child support
program was created to combat the rising number of families relying on the former
welfare system.

 

According to the testimony given by John Monahan, the former Principal Deputy Assistance
Secretary of the Administration for Children and Families (1998), child support 
is an essential part of welfare reform because it sends a message of responsibility
to both parents.  There, of course, are not many arguments against parental responsibility.
However, it becomes a problem when government programs shift their responsibility
to care for the less fortunate onto other low-income people.  These programs are
supposed to provide a safety net for a family that is struggling to provide basic
needs for their children and themselves.

 

The child support system and the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act essentially made
it a crime to be too disadvantaged to provide those basic needs.  By the agency\’
s own admission, child support helps to ensure that single-parent families and their
children do not need to rely on welfare in the first place (Manahan, 1998).  By 
transferring the burden from the government to the parents, the system failed to
provide cash, food stamps, and medical insurance for those families without providing
the necessary tools for those parents to become self-sufficient.  Strict restrictions,
including signing over the rights to future child support payments, forced needy
parents off of the welfare system and placed that responsibility onto the noncustodial
parents.

 

Theoretically, the burden should be applied to those parents, but reality changes
the dynamic when both parents are disadvantaged. Based on the report by The Department
of Health and Human Services (1998), there are many low-income noncustodial parents
who want to do right but who do not earn enough to meet their child support responsibilities.
This means that these low-income parents are not willfully failing to provide for
their children and, therefore, are not breaking any law. Since this information 
was known and reported over two decades ago, low-income parents should not be labeled
deadbeats.

 

Most circumstances are not appropriately represented by the law, and neither are
a large majority of parents.  Deadbeats, by law, are those who evade child support
responsibilities and willfully fail to support their children.  That is vastly different
than being a low-income parent and simply being to poor to meet the obligations.
The Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act may have been implemented with the best of intentions,
but those intentions have been lost in recent years.

 

States and counties love flooding internet articles and newspaper headlines advertising“
Deadbeat” roundups all across the country. Poor parents are not necessarily deadbeats,
and the government should stop labeling any parents delinquent on child support 
payments with such a derogatory term.  Our elected officials and those hired to 
carry out the law should be expected to acknowledge the distinction between deadbroke
parents and deadbeat parents. Dead broke should never automatically mean deadbeat.
The welfare-to-work programs that were initially offered when the welfare and child
support programs were implemented need to be used today.

 

The extremely exaggerated arrears amounts be erased and the grant money that states
use when performance measures are met or exceeded should be reinvested into job 
programs so that parents will be able to find long-term employment. These programs
will be extremely beneficial to the children and the families and will truly assist
with the goal of self-sufficiency.  By employing such programs, the government can
pursue and prosecute the real ‘deadbeats’.  Those are the parents who have the means
to support the children but willfully fail to provide any support.  The Deadbeat
Parents Punishment Act and the child support system are just more examples of government-
borne programs that have waged war against the low-income and poor parents of America.

 

References:

CNN. (1998, June 24). _Clinton Signs Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act – June 24, 
1998_. Retrieved August 18, 2014, from http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/06/24/
deadbeat.parents.bill/

Department of Health and Human Services. (1998, January 29). _Child Support Enforcement
Systems Penalties_. Retrieved August 18, 2014, from http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/
t980129b.html