{"id":2716,"date":"2003-01-12T14:07:48","date_gmt":"2003-01-12T21:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mossback.org\/archives\/2003\/01\/bandwagon-du-jour\/"},"modified":"2003-01-12T14:07:48","modified_gmt":"2003-01-12T21:07:48","slug":"bandwagon-du-jour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/2003\/01\/12\/bandwagon-du-jour\/","title":{"rendered":"Bandwagon du jour"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tEverybody’s a hypocrite in some way or another, so I don’t get too excited about commonplace displays of moral inconsistency. I figure it’s better to have high ideals that you don’t always live up to than to have none at all. But there are cases where hypocrisy crosses a line and becomes obscene and therefore worthy of mention. The child support story out of Washington DC presently circulating the same blogs that bashed Trent Lott recently is such a case. It appears to have started with Andrew Sullivan:<\/a><\/p>\n

WHY D.C. IS STILL HELL: What do you do with a man who has successfully evaded paying child support to kids from two different relationships? Make him head of D.C.’s child-support enforcement agency! Colbert King has the details. The kicker: D.C. collected payments in 12 percent of its child support cases in 2000. The national average is 42 percent. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and it’s been echoed by Glenn Reynolds<\/a> and Don McArthur<\/a> (a fan of the racist Gene Expression<\/a> site).<\/p>\n

These folks are all upset about the story of Roscoe Grant<\/a>, Deputy Director of the DC child support collection agency written by dim bulb Colby King:<\/p>\n

For years, the mother and aunt of Octavious Williams tried to get Grant to recognize and then do right by his son, Octavious. They even went to city agencies for help but got nowhere. It wasn’t until the family filed a paternity suit against him that Grant paid attention. And even then, it took a paternity test that came back positive to make Grant own up to the claim that he was Octavious Williams’s old man. Yet it fell to a magistrate judge to force Grant to do the right thing. Last July, the judge ordered him to pay $968 every two weeks to Octavious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s right, our moral leaders are upset that Roscoe Grant didn’t just automatically start giving $2000 a month to a woman who claimed he was the father of her baby without a DNA test. What gall.<\/p>\n

King also complains that the DC office of child support only collects money in 12% of cases, compared to a national average of 42%; this statistic caught the eye of the HIV-positive, bareback riding<\/a> Mr. Sullivan, exemplar of virtue in all things sexual. <\/p>\n

So let’s understand how government child support agencies work, and whether there’s any fire underneath all this smoke. Most of the people who collect child support have court orders against the father that were obtained as part of a divorce. Each state has a formula that dictates a percentage of income that has to be paid, and as soon as custody and paternity are decided, so is support. You don’t even have to have a judge issue these orders, they’re handed out by administrative judges, pro-temp judges, and by the child support collection agency itself. <\/p>\n

Once an order has been entered, most people pay their obligation directly to the custodial parent, usually the mother, without much fanfare. The court has the power to order the payer’s employer to garnish wages, and this is a normal part of the procedure. Going through this process of obtaining the order and ensuring compliance doesn’t brand the recipient as a gold-digger or the payer as a deadbeat: this is simply how the system works. This money doesn’t show up in the official collection rates, as it never touches the government’s hands.<\/p>\n

Now the process does get somewhat more complicated in the case where the child is born out of wedlock and the mother is on welfare, a very common scenario in Washington DC and in neighboring Prince George’s County, Maryland. In order to collect welfare, the mother has to identify the father and sign her child support rights over to the state. The state then obtains a judgment of paternity and a child support order, and begins collecting money. It keeps the money it collects if it’s less than mom’s welfare; if it’s more, it kicks her off welfare and gives her the child support. Hence there is a certain symmetry between child support and welfare.<\/p>\n

In many cases – roughly half – the man identified as the father by the welfare mother either can’t be found or is not, in fact, the father of the welfare child. Hence, it’s wise for any man presented with a child support order for an out-of-wedlock child to seek a paternity test. You wouldn’t want to have a legal obligation to pay $2000 a month for 20 years if you didn’t have to, would you? Of course you wouldn’t. <\/p>\n

This is exactly what Roscoe Grant did, and it doesn’t make him a deadbeat, it makes him prudent. King makes it sound like the mother of Octavious [sic] Grant had to shell out money from her own pocket for a paternity suit, but these proceedings are actually paid for by the state, with the father picking up the tab for the DNA test if its positive. It’s also common for fathers to pay welfare mothers under-the-table while all these proceedings are pending, and we don’t know that Grant didn’t do this himself.<\/p>\n

Now some men will sign a voluntary declaration of paternity without the DNA test, so perhaps King is angry with Grant for not doing this. I would take issue with him on that point as well, because the alleged father really has no way of knowing if he’s the real father without a DNA test, and if he signs up for a child that’s not his, he’s just cheated the real father and a the child out of the relationship they deserve.<\/p>\n

The collection rate statistic that Sullivan’s so impressed with is also not what it appears to be. States play all sorts of games with this figure, mainly by keeping people in the state collection system after they have no need for it. To understand this, take this example: State A obtains child support orders, begins collecting, and then allows the woman to exit the state system and collect directly from the man’s employer. She gets all her money every month without the delay of up to a month while the state holds the money, collects interest, and cuts her a check. State B, however, requires the mother to remain in the state program as long as she’s collecting support. They all get federal incentive dollars for the money they collect, and this approach maximizes them, even though it inconveniences mother and child. <\/p>\n

State A will have a low rate of collection, since most of the cases in its system are pending paternity tests, while state B will have a high rate of collection owing to the large number of cases in its system where paternity has been established. DC apparently follows the A model, more friendly to mothers, than the B model, more friendly to the government. <\/p>\n

Collection rates also reflect the underlying ability to pay of the local population. In California, half of unpaid child support is owed by people too poor to file an income tax return; given the high rates of unemployment among black men in DC, that figure is probably around 80%.<\/p>\n

But the larger issue is the $2000 a month child support order that King tries to diminish by dividing it into a bi-weekly sum when all orders are monthly. Dad’s contribution is supposed to be matched by a comparable one from mom — this is what all that “equality” stuff is about — so that young Octavious should be supported to the tune of $4000 a month. Will everybody who thinks it takes $4000 a month — or even $2000 — to raise an infant please get in touch with me? I’d like to sell you this fine bridge I’ve got over the Frisco Bay.<\/p>\n

But let’s suppose that I’m all wet and this Roscoe Grant character is a scumbag would should be fired from his job in the DC government; what happens to young Octavious and his momma when Roscoe no longer has a paycheck? That’s what I mean about the hypocrisy.
\n
\nHere’s another news story that provides additional details:<\/p>\n

Family Says No Financial Aid Has Been Offered, Despite Positive DNA Test <\/p>\n

By Sewell Chan
\nWashington Post Staff Writer
\nWednesday, June 12, 2002; Page B01 <\/p>\n

The second highest-ranking official in the District’s child support agency is the subject of a paternity suit filed by a family that says he has not agreed to voluntarily support his son, despite a genetic test that confirmed he is the father.<\/p>\n

The test concluded in March that it is virtually certain that Roscoe Grant Jr., the deputy director of the Child Support Enforcement Division, is the father of Octavious Williams, a 20-year-old college student. The case is now headed for the family division of D.C. Superior Court.<\/p>\n

This week, Grant’s own agency petitioned the court to establish a child support order in the case. Grant could be compelled to make back payments dating to his son’s birth if it can be proved that he had the ability to pay during the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

In an earlier paternity case, court records in Prince George’s County show that Grant agreed in 1999 to pay $300 a month to support a daughter, now 4. A test in that case, brought by the girl’s mother, found it was virtually certain that he was the father.<\/p>\n

Grant, 49, a 30-year city employee who makes $97,890 a year, declined several requests for comment. His lawyer, Lolita James Martin, said in a statement that he “became aware of the possibility he may be the biological father of a 20-year-old man” in March and that he voluntarily submitted to paternity testing.<\/p>\n

Martin added that although the test came back positive, “there remain outstanding issues of paternity and support that will be adjudicated” in court in July. “Mr. Grant has two other children for whom he has provided emotional and financial support and he fully intends to offer the same support to the young man in question if he is in fact the father,” she wrote. <\/p>\n

Corporation Counsel Robert R. Rigsby, whose office includes the Child Support Enforcement Division, said he assigned a lawyer from outside the division to handle the current case involving Grant to avoid the possibility of a conflict of interest. “There seems to be an appearance problem if he’s helping to supervise the child support division,” Rigsby said. <\/p>\n

Tony Bullock, a spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), said Grant has not broken any law. “Mr. Grant at this point is not in violation of any court order, he’s not delinquent on any payment, and he has not as yet entered into a payment plan,” he said. <\/p>\n

Bill Allison of the Center for Public Integrity, a government ethics watchdog group, said Grant has a higher responsibility to acknowledge and perform his parental responsibilities, regardless of what the law requires. Allison questioned whether Grant can effectively enforce the city’s child support laws when he has twice been taken to court to be declared the father of children who were not receiving support.<\/p>\n

In the District, if paternity is not established at birth, a child’s mother and father can sign and submit a voluntary paternity form to the D.C. Department of Health. And many parents reach informal support arrangements without using the federal-state child support program and local courts.<\/p>\n

Williams and his family said they have tried repeatedly over the years to get Grant to recognize his son and provide informal support. But Grant’s father, Roscoe Grant Sr., said his son told him that he had a grandson only about two weeks ago. The elder grant, 79, said his son had been told years earlier that the child was not his.<\/p>\n

“Then later, it comes up now that he is the father,” said Grant, a widower who lives in Portsmouth, Va., and raised six children. “If he’d have known, he’d have supported him, I’m sure. . . . I’m sure he’ll do what’s responsible.”<\/p>\n

Payments were collected in 12 percent of the District’s 127,890 child support cases in 2000, compared with the national average of 42 percent. Low-income families often have a hard time establishing paternity and seeking and enforcing child support orders. Elaine Sorensen, an economist at the Urban Institute, said the three main reasons fathers do not pay child support — with or without court orders — is that they cannot afford to pay, do not have access to their children or have remarried and had additional children.<\/p>\n

Williams is the third of five children, all born to different fathers, said his older sister and legal guardian, Michelle J. Thomas, who opened the child support case on his behalf. An older brother is in a federal prison for selling drugs, a younger brother was given up for adoption, and the youngest brother lives with an uncle.<\/p>\n

Their mother, Veronica T. Williams, 46, said she has had a long-standing cocaine addiction and has not regularly worked since 1987. She said she met Grant when she was a city parking attendant and he was a leader in one of the city’s largest municipal unions. They never married.<\/p>\n

Octavious Williams’s mother and sister said Grant helped out occasionally until Williams was 5 or 6 years old. After that, contact with him largely ceased.<\/p>\n

Single mothers on public assistance have long been required to give welfare case workers the names of their children’s fathers, from whom the government tries to recoup welfare expenses. Veronica Williams said that she has provided Grant’s name in the past to city employees but that they did not follow up. The city’s child support director, Joseph G. Perry, said he is trying to improve child support collections for welfare recipients.<\/p>\n

Thomas, 26, has been her brother’s guardian since 1996. She said she applied for child support for him in February after learning that she did not need a private attorney to do so and after Grant refused her request for informal help for her brother’s college costs. “I would have never applied if Octavious was not getting ready to go to school,” she said. “It doesn’t need to be thousands of dollars. Anything would help.”<\/p>\n

Craig C. Hughes, the manager at the city-run Rosedale Recreation Center, coached Williams and has known the family about 12 years. “I never had any relationship with his father, or even knew his father existed,” Hughes said.<\/p>\n

Hughes recalled giving the youth money for food, clothing, shoes and transportation. Williams occasionally stayed over, including once when Hughes witnessed Williams’s family get evicted.<\/p>\n

Thomas said she took Williams to live with an aunt in suburban Atlanta in 1996 to avoid the lure of the streets. After returning to Washington, Williams was a running back for Dunbar Senior High School as the team won three consecutive championships.<\/p>\n

Craig Jefferies, Dunbar’s head football coach, said Williams was “looking and craving for attention and structure.” He credited Thomas for providing most of Williams’s family support, saying she went to his away games and scraped together money to get him a tuxedo for the school prom. Jefferies also recalled subsidizing Williams’s attendance at summer football camps and giving him rides home when he lacked bus fare. <\/p>\n

Last year, shortly before Williams was to graduate, he was charged with carrying a pistol without a license. He spent two months in the D.C. jail and received probation from a judge who urged him to attend college, the family said.<\/p>\n

He is now studying business administration at Allen University in Columbia, S.C., and is back home for the summer. Above his athletic trophies is a diploma from Dunbar with his full name: Octavious Roscoe Williams.<\/p>\n

“To this day, I don’t really know him, I just know of him,” Williams said of Grant. “It’s been a rough ride for me, very rough, growing up in a household that’s very broken.” <\/p>\n

Grant fathered a daughter in 1997, according to records in Prince George’s Circuit Court. Her mother sued in 1998 to have him established as the father, and both sides agreed on payments of $300 a month. The mother declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Told about the older case, Octavious Williams said: “I was surprised that I’ve got another sister out there. I feel as though I’m his child too, and I need help from him too.”<\/p>\n

Hired in 1972 at $3.17 an hour, Grant worked as a laborer, sheet-metal worker and roofer and rose to the presidency of the local that represents hundreds of public works employees. After managing speaking engagements for Sharon Pratt, who was then mayor, Grant joined the child support office in 1995. He was promoted in July 2000 and made deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in a division with 180 employees and a $20.3 million budget. <\/p>\n

Grant also chairs Advisory Neighborhood Commission 7B, which represents a pocket of middle-class and upscale neighborhoods in Southeast Washington. <\/p>\n

The result of the genetic test came back while Williams was still at school. Since then, he said, his father has given him $100 and vowed to find him a summer job with the city, but made no promise of regular financial assistance. “I just started meeting him,” the son said. “He missed me growing up.” <\/p>\n

Metro researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report. <\/p>\n

? 2002 The Washington Post Company\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everybody’s a hypocrite in some way or another, so I don’t get too excited about commonplace displays of moral inconsistency. I figure it’s better to have high ideals that you don’t always live up to than to have none at all. But there are cases where hypocrisy crosses a line and becomes obscene and therefore … Continue reading “Bandwagon du jour”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbifyw-HO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}