Family Law Reform Group Displays Largest Banner at
The Jason Lewis Tax Cut Rally at the Minnesota State Capitol
In concert with the annual IRS tax deadlines, the 2008 Jason Lewis Tax Cut Rally, held Saturday April 12, 2008, was a huge success for Minnesota based family law reform group, the Center for Parental Responsibility, CPR.
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CPR is a non-profit organization mobilizing citizens who volunteer their time to advocate for family law reform that will ensure gender equity in family court, which they believe is sorely missing. Their mission is to remove the obstacles that prevent both parents from being fully and equally involved in the lives of their children.
They believe the biggest obstacle is unwarranted government intrusion in private family matters. Children are being routinely stripped of fit fathers and used as pawns by government agencies to grow their bureaucratic hold.
They believe the biggest loser in family court is the children. They believe the only winner in family court is the huge government bureaucracy that has been fleecing the Minnesota taxpayer for more money to fix a problem that doesn’t exist only to create new problems that destroy what little is left of the fractured families.
Sponsored by KTLK 100.3 FM radio, the outdoor anti-tax rally was held on the front steps of the Minnesota State Capitol despite cold, blustery, and snowy weather. The mantra for the day, from many different organizations, was an appeal for limited government and lower taxes. Many speakers joined radio host Jason Lewis, giving powerful presentations about the fiscally irresponsible decisions being made by state government officials. The program, which started at 12 noon, lasted nearly 1 ½ hours.
While an estimated crowd of 3,000 – 5,000 people attended the rally, CPR drew more than 50 members who united to send a message that government has turned against it’s citizens in family court. CPR volunteers brought large signs, literature, and a tent awning to help draw interest to their message.
CPR flyers directed people to their weekly family law reform TV show, seen every Wednesday night on Metro Cable TV Channel 6 at 8:30 pm. The past 19 episodes of CPR TV can also been seen online, with a link available at www.cpr-mn.org. The CPR petition for a presumption of joint physical custody (JPC) was signed by more than 100 people. For the second year in a row, CPR had the largest sign, measuring 5 feet x 18 feet. The sign, which read “Child Support Bureaucracy, Harmful to Children, Fraud Against Taxpayers,” was quite visible as it was the only sign at the top of the Minnesota Capitol steps. The sign was seen on the KSTP Channel 5 TV news clip aired that evening at 10pm.
CPR attempts to mobilize and educate citizens in the following areas:
1. Joint Physical Custody. Family law reform advocates believe the old paradigm of automatically giving mother sole physical custody of the children and giving dad every other weekend (4 days a month) in all divorce and out-of-wedlock births is not only outdated, but blatant gender discrimination against men and harmful to children. Unnecessarily taking fit loving parents from children in family court, creates forced fatherlessness, and should be considered child abuse.
CPR believes the solution is a presumption of joint physical custody, where both parents would be allowed to be equally involved with their children, to be consistent with the constitution.
2. Limited Title IV-D Services to the non-needy. Family law reform advocates believe the government child support agency, which get it’s authority from the federal Title IV-D welfare act, is operating in violation of federal law, usurping Congressional intent. The Title IV-D program is a welfare program designed by Congress in 1974 to collect money from uninvolved fathers who abandoned their children to welfare, making the children a public burden. This was a worthy and noble purpose to reimburse the public fisc and save taxpayers money. Beyond that, any government intervention in the family is providing public money for purely private purpose and a violation of many basic constitutional principles, resulting in waste, fraud, and abuse by the government child support agency.
According to Molly K Olson, founder of CPR, “the research is abundantly clear; the purpose of the public government child support agency was and is to reduce the cost of government by going after willfully absent fathers and forcing them to repay the government for what government paid out in welfare the single mother.” Molly adds “Instead, the government is now forcing fit loving fathers out of the family to create an artificial dependency on government for the purpose of unlawfully gaining more federal money to expand and secure state government jobs.”
The reimbursements from the father to the government were a cost recovery method to reduce taxpayer expense. Molly adds, “Now, instead of limiting the program as Congress intended, agency bureaucrats who are part of the Department of Human Services and tied directly into the county attorney offices, have expanded the program beyond Congressional intent, to include all unmarried parents, in order to expand their fiefdom and create a job security program for bureaucrats, at the expense of the parent-child relationship, harming children.”
Currently there are an estimated 17 million children in the government IV-D system, many of whom have been unnecessarily denied access to their fathers by family courts who take their lead from the bureaucracy. The Title IV-D bureaucracy has grown to well over 60,000 child support workers nationwide, as well as additional supporting county attorneys, and other administrative positions. CPR estimates the unwarranted expansion of the child support agency is fraudulently wasting Minnesota taxpayers at least $200,000,000 a year, and creating unlawful spending by the federal government at a rate of well over $10 billion a year. Currently the state Title IV-D welfare agencies are not using any eligibility standards and not doing any means testing for this welfare service program, but they are allowing everyone in the program who fills out an application.
CPR believes the solution is to force state agencies to restore the program back to Congressional intent by demanding the state agencies comply with required eligibility standards and means-testing.
3. Compliance to the Constitution. Family law advocates believe we must return the rule of law and respect for the constitution back to our family courts where it belongs. They believe family court judges and legislators are abdicating their responsibility by just caving to whatever the government bureaucracy wants. They want more power, control, and funding, no matter what the cost to families.
CPR believes the solution is to remove unwarranted government intrusion in private family matters, ensure that rules of evidence are followed in family court, and hold judges accountable to their oath to uphold the constitution and protect citizens against their government.
Efforts have been made for nearly 20 years in Minnesota to ensure fathers are treated equally in family court. The legislature has failed year after year to pass a JPC bill and a IV-D means testing bill through the committee process because of strong opposition by the Minnesota Bar Association, the domestic violence industry, Legal Aid, judges, the Minnesota Department of Human Services, and others who benefit financially from the break up of families and the unwarranted removal of fathers.
Molly K Olson, founder of CPR believes “the legislative process is not serving it’s citizens; government workers appear to be the primary constituency at the Minnesota legislature.”
Those CPR members who attended the rally are aware of the problems in family court and committed to family law reform that will benefit and enhance the lives of children, who thrive when both parents are involved in their lives.
The CPR message is that government is putting profits over children. They believe government is building a family court and child support bureaucracy that is unnecessarily gaining control of more families by removing fit loving fathers from their children, stripping one fit parent of custody, and artificially labeling one parent a non-custodial parent, in order to obtain more federal funding. There is an abundance of research that demonstrates the importance of fathers.
The CPR t-shirts say it all “Hey government, get out of our families; Hey government, get out of our pockets.”
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