Posted on 09/12/2011 6:56:00 AM PDT by PieterCasparzen
It may not be a crime to be poor, but it can land you behind bars if you also are behind on your child-support payments.
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Thousands of so-called “deadbeat” parents are jailed each year in the U.S. after failing to pay court-ordered child support — the vast majority of them for withholding or hiding money out of spite or a feeling that they’ve been unfairly gouged by the courts.
But in what might seem like an un-American plot twist from a Charles Dickens’ novel, advocates for the poor say, some parents are wrongly being locked away without any regard for their ability to pay — sometimes without the benefit of legal representation.
Randy Miller, a 39-year-old Iraqi war vet, found himself in that situation in November, when a judge in Floyd County, Ga., sent him to jail for violating a court order to pay child support.
He said he was stunned when the judge rebuffed his argument that he had made regular payments for more than a decade before losing his job in July 2009 and had recently resumed working.
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(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
She always is according to the husband. It’s never his fault.
—I realize circumstances change. But I also realize that many people give up on marriage way too soon...—
Exactly. That is why more than 75% of divorces are brought on by the wife, and the lions share “without cause”. i.e. they just don’t want to be married any more.
The highest bidder, eh?
Wrong.
—)...but for god’s sake, quit whining and pay for your kids.—
You lost your job. Now what?
Oh, and you did not want the divorce nor did you deserve it. It was, quite literally, something that was done TO you.
And your kids no longer live with you - against your will.
I had this idea...if you can’t afford to have a child, don’t have sex and have a child. Then I thought, if you aren’t married, don’t have sex and have a child. Just an idea.
*******************
Exactly...
Among Christians, divorce rate is higher due to attacks on the family by Satan and his minions.
We need divorce reform in this country. If both parties don’t agree, no divorce.
In which state? In my state support ends at age 18 or upon the last day of high school, but never past 19 1/2.
She doesn't earn anything ... however her Sugar Daddy is doing quite well. He has his own business, she's sleeping with him and apparently he's happy with the situation (at least for the time being).
Again, my view is simple - If I sue, I have to show my loss and document what damages I have actually sustained. If I get child support - the amount is based upon the father's household income. I can spend that money in any manner I see fit. Clothes, cars, booze, vacations, drugs ... and the child is yet again the victim. Just because I get $'x' in child support, doesn't mean that the child ever realizes any of that money.
The system is badly broken.
As others have said already, it’s not as simple as that. When I had my son, we were doing well and I had no notion that my marriage was going to end in a nasty, financially destructive divorce. Paraphrasing Clark Gable, frankly, the courts don’t give a damn. They impose a child support obligation based on your income history, regardless of the fact that your disposable income shrinks dramatically by virtue of having 2 households and an ex who is not exactly trying to be frugal with expenses she/he can impose on you. On top of that, it is not unusual, as happened in my case, that divorce was not a career enhancer: my earnings actually declined significantly because of all the added stress of the situation, including the demands of maintaining a strong relationship with my son under the constraints of “visitation”. Again, the courts generally don’t give a damn, while paying lip service to the idea that you might get a reduction in the child support based on “changed circumstances”. Most judges will only give a reduction if your reduced income is the result of some catastrophic event, such as a disabling injury.
Yes, there are folks who simply have kids without a clue about supporting them, but for a lot of parents in divorce that is just not the case.
The Lord really took care of me when it happened to me. I lost my job for several months and when I found a new one, it paid almost three times what my old one did. It got me through the whole thing and then the pay scale for my particular occupation went back down to “normal” levels. It was pretty amazing, actually.
I’m not rich, but I came out of it financially fairly unscathed. It destroyed my work ethic, though. Work has been a struggle ever since. I’m darned good at what I do for a living, but I just don’t really care any more. I don’t like earning just to pay a lot of tax dollars that are going to support such an evil system. I think it made me just a little bit “crazy” in that area. It happened in the late 1990’s, btw.
“You devastated her. hope you are happy. You got it all.”
Actually, I was the one devastated. She ruined our marriage, cheated on me with someone she knew was HIV positive (he made more money than I did), thankfully its been 9 years and I am still negative, luckily she is too. There is a lot more to this story.
My point being, don’t think everyone’s situation and all divorces are the same they are not. This is where our family law and its support structure is failing the very children it is supposed to protect.
My son was lucky and ended up with the correct parent but unfortunately that is not always the case.
—“All the financial perks” don’t make me laugh—
YMMV ;->
In a divorce action , “Child Support” is nothing more than a ‘re-distribution of wealth’.
It is assessed as a percentage of gross income , before taxes, based upon the number of children.
No receipts , no accounting , no innocence , no lost jobs ,no excuses
It is financial suicide
Could be. But in this case everyone from the mailman to the tooth fairy can see the wife is a lazy, useless slug who contributes little to nothing to the family.
what is YMMV
—“the divorce rate among Christians is the same as for the general population”.—
Having attended an Assembly of God church for almost two decades, I can tell you that the marriage expectations of women in that organization were a recipe for wife instigated divorce. I saw it. I saw several women with young children divorce their husbands and they ALL used the same attorney. Dead serious. It was like an assembly line over several years.
However, I think the phrase I quoted from your post should be altered as follows to be accurate: “the divorce rate among PROFESSING Christians is the same as for the general population”. Only God knows who is His. The rest is all big fat claims. I learned the hard way.
News flash—if she makes nothing, you get child support based on imputed minimum wage, not any part of his income. And she will likely get credit for overnights and what non monetary support she provides, clothes, supplies etc.
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