In Iowa, the government has confiscated the savings of an 11-year-old boy. Rylan Nitzschke saved $200 from chores and shoveling snow, but now his savings belongs to the state.  Why?  Rylan's father allegedly owes child support - for Rylan! - and the father's name was on the boy's bank account.

OK, so this is a fluke, and the state will return the boy's savings, right? Wrong.  State officials have no intention of returning the money.  And why should they?  They receive federal funds for each dollar they collect. Returning Rylan's piggy bank is bad fiscal management.

Such expropriations are far from unusual.  In West Virginia, child support officials cleaned out the bank account of an 85-year-old grandmother whose son allegedly owed child support.  The son never paid into the account, which comprised her life savings.  She was also charged $75 processing fee.

Children often pay child support to grown-ups.  In California and Kansas, minor boys statutorily raped by adult women must pay child support to the criminals who raped him.  In one case, the boy was drugged before sex.

The elderly can also become targets of rape-for-profit.  A disabled 85-year-old man, sexually assaulted by his housekeeper and awarded damages for the assault, was ordered to pay her child support, and his pension was garnished.  He was denied access to the child.

"We've got some 45-year-old 'kids' running around who are owed child support," says Nick Young, enforcement director in Virginia.

In Canada, runaway children now sue their parents for child support.  In California, a 50-year-old divorce lawyer successfully sued his own parents for child support because depression rendered him unable to work. 

Child support has little to do with providing for children.  Its purpose is to redistribute money - and political power - among grown-ups.  Iowa officials say the only way Rylan's father can prevent the looting of Rylan's savings in the future is to give the money to the adult with custody.

Thus has child support turned children into cash prizes and even "cash crops."  One girl tells a Toronto newspaper of her career plans:  "I'm going to marry a really rich guy, then divorce him," she says.  "But first I'm going to have his kids, so I get child support."

Stephen Baskerville


This article is a transcript of Dr. Baskerville's radio commentary recorded for the Free Congress Foundation, available for listening and downloading at http://www.fcfnewsondemand.org/.