House of Eratosthenes

This interests me. Not so much because I’m a single-dad myself, but because of how the law goes about being changed. I think it should interest us all. I’ll explain further below.

Glenn Sacks emailed to let me know about a lawsuit being filed by Fathers and Families, to stop new Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines:

Fathers and Families has filed suit in Federal District Court in Boston to stop the scheduled January 1 implementation of new Child Support Guidelines. The suit seeks a temporary injunction halting the use of the new guidelines until a full hearing can be held. It will be heard before Judge D.P. Woodlock on Monday, January 5 at 10 AM in courtroom 1…..

The new guidelines will cause almost all child support orders to increase substantially — when all factors are considered, middle-class recipients will enjoy a standard of living almost double that of payers who earn about the same amount. In some cases, child support orders will triple, even in cases in which the payer is poor and the child is economically comfortable because the custodial parent earns over $100,000. And in high income cases, the child support order for one child could be nearly $50,000.

Massachusetts is already an expensive place to live; if these new guidelines are passed, it will be harder, mainly for the divorced men in that state. Go take a look here and see what you can do to help. As Dr. Ned Holstein, the executive director of Fathers and Families says, “If you ‘leave it to the other guy,’ it won’t happen.”

I think it’s a mistake to oppose this kind of thing outright. Like many silly ideas, it isn’t exposed as the sham it is, until you take it seriously. So let’s try a different tack here and take it seriously.

There may be an exquisite latin term for this legal concept — perhaps one of the legal-beagles can blossom forward with some useful nuggets of info in the comments below. This concept in which, it is determined at the outset that “it’s impossible to be fair to both parties” involved in the transaction that has come to be known as child support. Obviously, if the momma and the poppa are not living together, and there isn’t enough money to go ’round to support two households, that’s the situation we have. And sure, the kids should win, so there is a glimmer of merit to this argument.

A glimmer.

But — if we are to take that seriously — why the trebling of the child support on autopilot? Isn’t it pretty much a foregone conclusion that such cases would have to be heard on a case-by-case basis? How in the world could they not be?

That leads into another thing…another legal concept, for which there may be another exquisite latin term. It happens at the state level, usually, and here in the Golden State we have a lot of this going on. That thing where the legislators take on the same issue, every twelve months, or every six, over and over again. Picking at it repeatedly, like a little boy scratching away at a scab.

Out here, our thing is child safety seats. “As of July 1, your child will need to be in a seat if he weighs more than…” We should hear this, like, maybe every five years or so? Ten? It’s more like every one or two. How come that iz? If sixty-five pounds is the magic number, our wonderful illustrious legislators should’ve figured that out earlier, or if they didn’t, they, or the researchers who put out the reports they were reading, should be flogged with some kind of discredit or disapproval for producing the wrong numbers in earlier cycles. Human lives are at stake here, after all! Childs’ lives!

But no, it’s just a little game they play. Planned obsolescence. I can understand doing that for the sake of grandstanding. But you’re supposed to be at least play-acting like you’re doing this out of concern for the safety of the Little People, and of course, if that were the case they’d be working extra-extra-extra hard to make these laws extra-extra-extra good. With the right numbers. The right quantity of pounds of a child whose butt has to be in a seat, or the right number of dollars siphoned from the single dad who can’t make the rent for his shitty apartment anymore.

But no. They keep screwing with it and screwing with it.

First time my baby-momma and I compared notes on the “new” law of the day, and found out even the cops didn’t understand what was going on, we were flabbergasted. Since then, we’ve learned to take it in stride. She no longer lives in California. And the kid is too big for any kind of safety seat at all. I think. Until they muck with that law again. At this point, nothing would surprise me.

But let’s stop kidding around. This isn’t about making sure everyone’s comfy and has the adequate child support dollars rolling in. It’s about proving you’re a “Good Peepul” by passing bad laws. Legislators, of all states, tend to be caught in this infinite loop of proving this over and over again…the way all guilty people are. Very much like the guy with the tiny penis driving a racy red-hot car, or an enormous truck. Compensatin’ for somethin’.

Two quick items:

1. Expect soon many women asking themselves (even louder than before) where have all the good men gone? Women will soon find men even less interested in tying the knot, to both the men and the women’s long-term detriment.

2. I have often said out loud to people I know that I fully expect children (expanding definitions aside) to be required to wear helmets in cars , in my lifetime.
- wch | 01/02/2009 @ 11:27

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Child Support Triples… on AutopilotThursday, January 1st, 2009

Child Support Triples… on Autopilot
Thursday, January 1st, 2009