Story originally printed in the Coulee News or online at www.couleenews.com
Published - Thursday, March 22, 2007
GUEST COLUMN: Reverse child support cuts
Child support payments are often the only rope holding a child above the poverty line. Now imagine that the successful federal program binding that rope is cut — so severely that one Wisconsin community must resort to holding a raffle to fill the hole left in their budget.
Hard to imagine? But that’s exactly what happened when the president signed a law that slashed federal funding for child support enforcement.
The child support enforcement program collects outstanding payments and funds other activities aimed at getting child support to the families who need it. The cut left thousands of Wisconsin’s children, relying on child support payments for basic necessities, dangling by a thread.
I fought against that legislation because I thought it would hurt Wisconsin families — now we are seeing its toll. A Feb. 15 article in the Ashland Daily Press detailed the negative impact the child support enforcement cuts will have on state and county budgets. The numbers are disturbing.
Nationally, more than $8 billion in child support owed by non-custodial parents will go uncollected over the next decade. That figure, from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, is misleading, because it assumes that every state will be able to step-in and make up for half of the funding cut.
If cash-strapped states are unable to fill the gap, it is estimated that nearly $17 billion will go uncollected and never reach the families that need it.
Wisconsin has been hit harder than most. Why? Amazingly, the answer lies in the success that our state has demonstrated in its child support program. While the national program collects $4.10 for every federal dollar spent — a success by any measure for a federal program — Wisconsin collects, on average, about $6. The federal government rewarded the efforts of Wisconsin’s child support agencies with incentive payments, allowing for even greater investments in our program. The cuts target these incentives — penalizing our state for its success.
I have heard directly from Wisconsin child support enforcement agencies on how these cuts will affect them. I was stunned that La Crosse County officials held a raffle to help support their child support agency.
I applaud their hard work and initiative in their effort to care for the children who need these child support payments. And I applaud Governor Doyle’s efforts to help fill the gap. But it is not enough.
I recently introduced bipartisan legislation to reverse these extremely harmful cuts and restore federal funding to child support enforcement. I hope to work with my colleagues in the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, and with the rest of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation to get this legislation passed.
Restoring these cuts is the right thing to do. It will help our state; it will help our counties. Most importantly, however, it will help hardworking, single-parent Wisconsin families.
I believe we can do better. I believe we can, and should, continue to reward a successful program. It is our responsibility in Congress to do what we can to help the families of Wisconsin, and I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting legislation that will do exactly that.
All stories copyright 2006 Coulee News and other attributed sources.