The Family Child Support Conspiracy

In January 1975, President Gerald Ford signed into law HR 17045 of the Health and Human Services, which gave birth to the Child Support Enforcement Program. This is a federal-state program whose purpose was to help strengthen families by securing financial support for children from their noncustodial parents. As a bonus, this new Child Support Enforcement program, along with President Johnson's unconditional war on poverty in the America Act, better known as the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, was sold to be the answer to eliminate intergenerational poverty cycles here in the United States. At the time of this groundbreaking new HR 17045 law, the child poverty rate was at 12 percent.

However, standing in the way of this bill passing Congress was a heavily favored constitutional bedrock law called the Privacy Act. At its foundation was the 1890 Brandeis Right to Privacy law. That was simply stated the "right to be let alone." Then, there was the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights that declares "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence; nor attacks upon his honor and reputation." The Congress of 1974 was in a decisive moment. In order to pass this failing bill, there needed to be a compromise. In exchange for a yes vote to change the Privacy Act (so that we can have this new child support program), Congress will grant exemptions to some federal employees so that their pay cannot be garnished by this new child support program. And to cement this program with the everyday American people, Congress agreed to input a couple of stimulus-response theories into this package.

They understood that providing a stimulus to individuals will cause them to react in a certain way, and by rewarding or punishing these responses, they can train the person to react in a particular way. They also used operant conditioning, a method of learning that employs, rewards, and punishes behaviors to establish and maintain conflict between parties--in this example, behaviors between fathers, mothers, and their children. Both psychological theories work together to ensure a desired destination: the classic "divide and conquer" plan.

Now that this bill was signed into law, there was only one thing left to do. That was to sell this program to the American people and collect the profits. They found the perfect strategy to get their message across: it's called yellow journalism. It's an 1890s melodrama technique, coined by newspaper owners William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. It used sensational dramatic pieces, with exaggerated characters to persuade its readers to believing that made-up storylines were true. In the end, it made them both very rich.

It's now 2021. We have had over forty years to look back over this child support program. Opinions are conflicting. However, we cannot change the facts; remember, facts are very stubborn things. It is a proven f...