Texas is getting milage out of this:

This is a letter to the editor of the North Texas News web site, regarding their article.  I will write their response if and when I actually get them.

I recently came upon your article about child support evaders
(http://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publish/article_39305.shtml), which is
about as modern of a punishment as strapping them into the stocks or
putting them up in a pillory, and I noticed several things about it:
First off, I notice that these are all men up there.  Is it really that
the women in your state are that caught up with their child support?  Or
is it merely that the numbers the judges hang on the men are
astronomically higher than those of the women.
Also, let's talk about the numbers here.  I noticed Abbott got his story
fixed and didn't spout off in this article about how the non custodial
parents are only owing "a couple of hundred dollars" a month, unlike
here http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5798505&nav=0s3j (or is that
just good editing).  However, he doesn't seem to be giving any details
as to these amounts.  How much of these orders are retroactively  set
for months prior to the court hearing?  How much of this money is
"imputed", or based on a figure the judge thinks the cash cow...I mean
non custodial parent should make rather than what he is making now.
By the way, my own extended response to the kxan story is here
(https://pueblonative.wordpress.com/2006/12/31/a-mathetmatical-approach-to-dead-beats/)
where I discuss what the attorney would lead you to believe they owe vs
what they really would owe, which leads me to this point: according to
your article: "The Office of the Attorney General helps parents who lack
the ability to pay child support by referring them to job training and
employment services."   Now, I know an arrest photo is not a glamour
shot, but do you really think they're sending them down to the job
training office and setting them up on a job where they can support
themselves, the chlid, AND the custodial parent tagging along for the
ride?  Even when the child is not with the non custodial parent--sorry,
slip, I'm assuming these men will be allowed into the child's lives.
Offering a man a minimum wage job when he has an unforgivable debt over
his head is not "help"; it is thinly disguised slavery.
Finally, one last thing, you note that the custodial parent must sign a
"confidentiality waiver": contrary to what you and the custodial parent
might think, they do not have the right to sign over anything about the
non-custodial parent to anybody.  It is not their mugs that are being
posted out there, and it damn sure isn't their debt.
One last thing: in October of 2003, the Federal Reserve Board figured
that consumer debt hit $1.98 trillian dollars.  Sounds like a lot of
deadbeats out there that we could shame into paying their debt?  How
much do you owe?  Why haven't you paid up?

John Meyer
Pueblo, CO