"AN ENLIGHTENED CITIZEN IS AN INDISPENSABLE INGREDIENT OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF DEMOCRACY"
-- Barbara Jordan, former U.S. Congresswoman and state legislator
Child Support Awareness
Child Support Enforcement
Children put at risk
TO BE IN YOUR CHILDRN'S MEMORIES TOMORROW, YOU HAVE TO BE IN THEIR LIVES TODAY!!!!!!!!!
The legal obligation of a parent to support a child began in the common law. "The duty of
the parent to maintain his offspring until they attain the age of maturity is a perfect
common law duty." Dawson v. Dawson, 12 Iowa 512 (1861).
Today, child support is a
statutory obligation.
What is government itself but
the greatest of all reflections
on human nature?
If men were angels, no
government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men,
neither external nor internal
controls on government
would be necessary.
James Madison (1751?1836), U.S.
president. Federalist Papers, no. 47
(Jan. 1788)
The ex-husband of a vocal child-support recovery advocate from Casey was convicted of willfully failing to pay his obligations, U.S. Attorney Steven Colloton said Monday.
Otho Rater, 59, now of Kansas, admitted during his trial in Des Moines that the past-due obligation to his seven children exceeded $60,000.
Rater waived his right to a jury trial and had his case tried before U.S. District Judge James Gritzner. Rater faces a prison term of up to two years when he is sentenced Feb. 3.
Rater's case has received widespread attention, thanks mainly to his crusading ex-wife, Maja Rater, who has written letters to newspapers, lobbied lawmakers and criticized bureaucrats since he first failed to pay child support in the mid-1980s.
Otho Rater will be sentenced on February 3rd,2003 at 9 AM in U.S. District Court in Des Moines, Iowa
A Kansas man was sentenced to 15 months in prison for failing to pay child support to children in Guthrie County.
Otho Rater, 59, of Schoenschen, Kansas, owes $87,181.70 in back child support payments. He was indicted on 5 counts of willfully failing to pay a past-due child support obligation on June 25, 2002.
The charges relate to unpaid child support of seven children that has accrued since 1982. He was found guilty of the charges on Nove. 4, 2002
In the United States 20 million children are
owed more than $107 billion
in back child support.
This is money parents who don't live in the
same household as the children
are court ordered to pay to help economically
support their children.
It is the law!!
The unwillingness of states to collect this court
ordered economic support awarded these children
has forced many of these families onto
the welfare rolls
For years politicians in their lust
for power and reelection have dermagouged the
plight of these families, blaming
the victims rather than the parents avoiding their
economc, court ordered obligations to their
children, as well as the states' unwillingness to
collect from unwilling parents, and the courts'
refusal to enforce the laws put in place to prevent
this neglect.
This economic neglect by parents placed a great
economic burden on the tax payers which finally
culminated in the passage of a welfare bill which
allowed states to do to children what the parents were doing:
economically abandoning these children!
State after state is bragging about how fast children are
being dropped, releasing tax payers of any economic
obligations to these economically abandoned children.
No one is bringing up that the welfare bill that allows the
states to cut economic support to these economically
abandoned children, also demands that the court ordered
economic support these children morally and legally are
entitled to from their absent parents be collected
Contact your congress people and demand that they do what we elect them to do and what they claim they do: Pass responsible legislation and enforce it!!!
Senator Joseph Lieberman wrote a book on child support: Child Support in America (Can be purchased at Amazom.com). He is a former Attorney General from the state of Connecticut.
In Iowa 134,401 children are owed $1.05 billion in unpaid child support.
Nationwide millions of children are owed $107 billion. It is time to move child support collections over to IRS!!
In Iowa non-support is a felony class-D.
Yet, it took me 16 years to
get the state to prosecute and sentence my former husband of
23 years to prison for economically abandoning his 7 children!
It was not because of the state's willingness to enforce a law
put in place to protect children from economic neglect that my
former husband was sentenced to 5 years in prison on June 9th, 1998
(the first case of its kind in Iowa), but because, as a child support
worker from the Iowa Attorney General's Office said, "of a very vocal
parent who convinced the Polk County attorney to prosecute"
this deadbeat parent.
It is not for lack of laws millions of children are going without.
It is not because of lack of laws that it has become very risky
to choose to become a parent--suicidal to be a stay-at-home parent.
It is because of an unwillingness to enforce said laws!
How can that be in a country that prides itself of being a country
governed by rule of law?
Or does that only depend on whose ox is gored?
Contact your congress people and demand that they do what we elect them to do and what they claim they do: Pass responsible legislation and enforce it!!!
THE SUREST WAY TO TEACH CHILDREN RESPECT
FOR THE LAW IS BY ENFORCING THE LAWS PUT
IN PLACE TO PROTECT THEM.
THE SUREST WAY TO TEACH CHILDREN CONTEMPT
FOR THE LAWS AS WELL AS CONTEMPT FOR OUR
POLITICAL SYSTEM IS BY IGNORING THE LAWS PUT
IN PLACE TO PROTECT THEM WHILE GETTING TOUGH
WHEN THEY BREAK LAWS!