>Why has TANF happened but CSE languishes? On what basis do
>you think that merely exhibiting the rightness of making CSE work
>will contribute to making it work?
How can CSE be "right" for feminists, though? Unless one accepts that poor women have a responsibility to establish paternity of their kids, must allow the state to track records of their sex lives, etc.? Is a poor woman supposed to extract the social security number, driver's license number, etc. from a guy before she fucks him, even if it's just a one-night stand? This gives a new meaning to the word "scoring." :)
***** Los Angeles Times March 24, 1997, Monday, Home Edition SECTION: Part A; Page 1; Metro Desk HEADLINE: MOTHERS PRESSED INTO BATTLE FOR CHILD SUPPORT BYLINE: CARLA RIVERA, TIMES STAFF WRITER
New lines are being drawn in the battle to improve the collection of child support for millions of children nationwide. But the latest confrontation features an unlikely set of combatants: poor mothers and a government that believes that too often the women are unwilling to help obtain the support payments that could help lift them out of poverty.
The dispute is being driven by federal welfare legislation that requires mothers to do more than they've ever done to help find the absent fathers of their children. That means providing detailed information, even if the mother doesn't have it.
The new federal guidelines, as well as proposals being considered by California lawmakers, are designed to jump-start a child support system that nearly everyone agrees is ailing.
But they are also likely to push the responsibilities of mothers--and fathers--into uncharted realms that raise a host of troubling questions about privacy and the punitive nature of many aspects of welfare reform.
Government officials say it is all about raising the level of personal responsibility and providing the financial security and male role models that are lacking in the lives of so many poor children.
Critics, however, say that welfare mothers, already in dire straits, now face a host of new problems: They could be denied assistance if they cannot dredge up the minutiae of a relationship that may have been short-lived and ended years before; and under tight new welfare time limits, which call for most mothers to get jobs within two years, many of them will soon begin to be shut off aid anyway.
Although the paternity provisions have received little public scrutiny, the issue of child support looms large in any discussion of welfare reform because most everyone agrees that improving support collections could help reduce the welfare caseload.
Under new federal standards, women on welfare must provide a Social Security number, an address, a driver's license number--something more than just the father's name, or risk a minimum 25% reduction in the family's cash grant. States that do not sanction a family for noncooperation could lose millions of dollars in federal funding.... *****
For the entire article, see my post titled "More on Child Support."
Yoshie