The American Freedom Network

Debtor’s Prison in Michigan

December 7, 2009 – 7:45 am

Michigan is using debtor’s prison to give unemployed fathers an un-merry Christmas.  If you owe “child support,” and you don’t pay, you can go to jail.  (A/G Mike Cox makes a big deal out of this.  He’s

running for Governor.)  No one cares if you’re behind because you are among the 15% officially ‘unemployed’ in this state.  (The actual unemployment rate is closer to 30%, as the official stat only counts those drawing unemployment checks.  see wwwshadowstats.com for more on this.)  Never mind if you were the victim – she can run off with the milkman, take the kids, divorce you, claim you’re an abuser, get a restraining order without the court doing its’ duty to uphold your right to a fair trial, use the restraining order to jail you for trying to see your kids, and then get ‘child support’ that actually includes alimony.  (please not that those who make babies out of wedlock, who leave their families of their own volition, wife-beaters, et cetera get no sympathy from this writer – I write concerning those who played by the rules, but are getting shafted anyway.)

How’s that possible?  So-called child support is calculated in most states using a model

called ‘income shares.’  It assumes that a child of divorce should have the same standard of living as if the divorce never happened.  How can that be, when Dad has to support himself in a second household

on the same income as before?  It’s not possible without Dad getting a second job, since Mom will get most of his pre-existing paycheck.  (No account is taken of fault here – he could be a thug, she could be a tramp – it’s n’no-fault’ divorce for a reason.  The spouse doing the leaving does not have to have a good reason – boredom, a new lover, not being happy, etc. all work as well as the legitimate reasons – adultrey, abuse or

abandonment.)  So, Dad (usually the payer in these dramas) will be tapped out, even if he’s working.  After a layoff, injury, illness, etc., he’s behind on payments.

What good does it to jail someone who’d pay, if they could?  None, and the potential felony conviction makes them basically unemployable, and thus parted from their children forever, a permanent member of the underclass.  Since this depression is taking a disproportionate share of it’s job-loss victims from the building trades and manufacturing, male-dominated industries, one need not be Adam Smith to see how the visible hand of bad policy will be upon the throat of the blue-collar unemployed in Michigan.  Loss of family,

livelihood, and even freedom – with nothing except life itself left to lose, it is a wonder that there has been n o resistance – revolutions are made of such stuff.

To add insult to injury, Michigan charges interest on arrearages.  Since arrearages are not forgivable, for any reason whatsoever, there is no way to escape the compound interest one must pay to the state.

Where is the latter-day Charles Dickens who will awaken a people from their comsumerist topor and rouse them to action with stories about our debtor’s prisons?