Michigan AG Linked to Organized Crime

October 25, 2003

The child support collection system in the United States has been scrutinized for years. There have been no positive benefits, only a rather obvious system of syphoning money from the federal trough as well as from private child support payments to private companies. Constitutional violations connected with the scheme are also obvious.

Michigan is one of the states that artificially increased child support award amounts and forced huge numbers of good paying fathers to pay through their system, then falsely claimed the payments are "collections" in order to increase the amount of federal funds they receive. Private collection agencies, which typically keep around one third of the payments receive also benefit as more fathers have been driven into debt.

Even in the midst of well-founded allegations of corruption and organized criminal activity, some politicians are taking a risk to support the system. There are billions of dollars in child support funds lining the pockets of "business men" involved in the scheme, and even more from public funds. For some, the size of the temptation apparently seems to justify continuing the activity as though the public is completely unaware.

Michigan's Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican, is just that kind of person. Cox has put together a promotional campaign that he says will cost about $180,000 this year and could cost an annual $500,000 down the road, that fathers' rights activists are certain to complain about.

Aside from a new website called PayKids, the promotion will attempt to degrade and intimidate fathers with billboards showing pictures of handcuffs and men behind bars, and bid for public sympathy with stories of children suffering while their fathers live in luxury.

We've been through it all before. The "deadbeat dad" campaign raged during the early 1990s, with claims that a crackdown would save money for taxpayers. Instead, it's cost billions, and the truth is that fathers who can pay generally do. "Collections" consist primarily of payments that would be made more efficiently if not processed through the government system, but by check sent directly from one parent to the other.

All of the general allegations aimed at fathers as a group during the 1990s have since been researched and are false. The child support system was built on lies and normal human curiosity forced looking into the motive. There are people stealing a lot of money from fathers, mothers, and children and from the government. It wouldn't be possible without a dirty AG.

Roger F. Gay