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If you think this is about YOU, maybe you should go reconcile with your parent and work to get back your kids instead of continuing to be a jerk. If you think I am you, or similar to you, welcome! :-)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Legislators, whose welfare do you consider? Part II

I once read a very explicit novel on laws against the Second Amendment called Unintended Consequences. It wasn't the best written book I'd ever read, or the shortest, but it made its point that enacting laws to overprotect can often lead to consequences the various bills' authors never imagined.

I believe there are a lot of welfare laws out there that were supposed to assist people in times of need, but developed unintended consequences. Just because the money is raised by taxes doesn't make it less theft from somebody's hard-earned paycheck and thrust it into the pocket of somebody who may or may not deserve it. 

When husbands and fathers started leaving families and not paying support, welfare once again stepped into the breach with a deal. If the custodial parents would only file papers against the nonpaying parents, welfare would give them money and collect it from the offending parent. This is still money being taken from the pockets of those who earned it and placed in the pockets of others, no matter how they might need it, no matter how much of a loan to the custodial parents it allegedly is.

Now grandparents are trying to collect support from their offspring who are legal adults. The chances of their local child support enforcement office chasing down the parents who owe it are slim to none. These offices don't understand the situation. They figure the old folks will go away, or the parents will come back. They also try to retrofit law and don't realize grandparents aren't merely custodial parents.

By law in most states, unless a grandchild is born to a minor child, or the grandparents adopt the grandchild, grandparents are not legally responsible for the financial costs of raising grandchildren. Just because a grandparent becomes the custodian or the guardian of a grandchild doesn't suddenly make them liable.

I know. I experienced extreme frustration at the hands of Illinois FHS and DHS when my children were my grandchildren. My case for support came up after 26 months of custody. At that time, the states attorney's office sent me a letter telling me I had no business trying to collect support, that I had adopted the children (something the person who wrote the letter should NOT have known, as it was a closed related adoption), and I should get a private attorney to do so. 

For the 26 months my children were our wards, we spent about $40,000.00 on their needs, not including the money we spent on adoption. Out of that, Illinois paid our wards $5,486. What if we had not been able to afford what was necessary?

To the best of my knowledge, DHS and FHS never once tried to collect from the biological parents. 

One of the biological parents is employed in the military. In addition to the base pay he receives, he gets untaxed income for a place to live, food to eat, uniforms, certain other pay and allowances. He knew he had this set of children to support, yet he made four more. By law, the children here were supposed to come first.

As for our adult daughter, she has already made one child that we know. She has a bachelor degree, yet works in retail. 

My husband and I have thought about going to court through a private attorney and collecting what is due us. Even if we can't bleed a turnip, it would be a hoot to watch the bio parents' wages being garnisheed one dollar at time. We're still exploring the details, looking for an attorney with a pair, so to speak, who would actually take on these bozos and the courts.


But the welfare system gives little help, if any, to grandparents who do not insist that it do so, and even then, it isn't much. It's time for legislators to stop our present system of welfare, and with it, the urine tests, the vouchers, the robbing Peter to pay Paulette.  

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