PARENT'S RIGHTS NOW!

This is the time of year when members of the South Carolina General Assembly historically introduce reams of useless and pandering legislation in a transparent effort to placate powerful supporters and special interest groups. Even South Carolina's Lt. Governor Andre Bauer--who wants to be Governor and is apparently ignorant of the content and purpose of "The Welfare Reform Act of 1996"--is getting in on the act.

Our impulse is to "out" those who appear to be the worst transgressors of this pandering practice. However, rather than just attacking folks on this Blog, we prefer to try to offer solutions to problems. Additionally, we often try to include links to law cases, statutes, scholarly articles, studies and government publications that support our positions. For example, note "SOLVING THE CHILD SUPPORT COLLECTION PROBLEM IN SC."

For reasons that the South Carolina General Assembly and DSS apparently do not understand, South Carolinians are owed more than $1.5 Billion in past due child support. And, addressing this problem is, in our opinion, far more important than introducing additional welfare reform legislation because it will help get custodial parents off of welfare.

Simply stated, State and Federal Legislation already exists to address the problem of irresponsible parents whose children must depend on welfare. South Carolina just has to have the WILL to act legally, morally, and ethically by enforcing the Laws that already exist and insisting that those in government do their jobs. That means, in case we have not made ourselves clear--South Carolina should carry out the mandates set forth in "The Welfare Reform Act of 1996"--identify the fathers of illegitimates, locate them, bring them into court, set a child support obligation, make the non-custodial parents pay child support, distribute the money to the custodial parents or guardians of the children, and get the mothers off of welfare.