It’s not Social Security that is at fault here. It is us.

[kpete]

LES MISERABLES: SOCIAL SECURITY
Javert
And Evil

From a message from the National Consumer Law Center (reference [e-mail]):

It’s perfectly fine for a person who failed to pay their child support to end up penniless and living in their car, and to die that way.” – High Ranking U.S. Treasury Official, in response to a request for help with Treasury’s rules which allow 100% of Social Security benefits to be taken to pay for decades-old child support. February 3, 2012. As the result of the concurrence of two new Treasury rules, elderly and disabled Social Security recipients will soon lose all of their benefits to old child support orders.

• As of March, 2013, all recipients of federal benefits must receive benefits through electronic deposit, either through deposit directly into a bank account, or using the Treasury authorized Direct Express Card. (31 CFR § 208.4.) · Treasury’s new garnishment rule, intended to protect benefits in bank accounts from garnishment allows child support orders to garnish all of the funds in the accounts. (31 CFR 221.4.)

As a result, 65% of the recipient’s benefits will be withheld pursuant to administrative seizures and paid directly to the child support office. The remaining 35% will be deposited into the beneficiary’s bank account, where it will be seized in full through a bank garnishment. Most SS recipients who owe child support are old and or disabled.

Their children are grown and the child support is owed to the state. The amounts of the orders have ballooned to tens of thousands because of annual 10 or 12% interest rates applied. · Although blind and elderly, Mr. W. found a legal services lawyer in September 2010 when the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) ordered Treasury to take $217 from his Social Security check (which normally is $775).

................................

Unless WE have the decency to protect “the least of these” against the evil that can and does appear from time to time in “our government,” we can expect the time will come when we are among that select minority which the government can cheat and harm with impunity because “we the people” don’t give a damn.

It’s not Social Security that is at fault here. It is us.
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/02/les-miserables-social-security.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FHzoh+%28Angry+Bear%29

[DCKit]

1. While the threat might encourage some deadbeat parents to start paying up NOW...

the Fed and States should do a better job of collecting NOW, not after someone begins collecting SS.

Who's the most famous deadbeat dad in the U.S. right now?

[xchrom]

3. +1

[Little Star]

4. America’s Most Famous Deadbeat Dad Joe Walsh Given Pro-Family Award...

Write up from Nov, 2011

The Family Research Council, Satan’s favorite little pack of square-edged dildo monsters, mysteriously gave screamy attention whore Joe Walsh an award recognizing him as a “pro-family” human despite the fact that Joe Walsh is known back in reality as the worst, most anti-family human in Congress, for cheating his kids out of their little child support dimes for years even as he sues his ex-wife to avoid ever paying them. But still, he votes for things like trying to strip gay people of the chance to ever marry, repealing health care reform and destroying funding for women’s clinics, and…God, what are we saying? Joe Walsh deserves an award for being the guy in Congress you least want near your family.

http://wonkette.com/455751/americas-most-famous-deadbeat-dad-joe-walsh-given-pro-family-award

[DURHAM D]

2. Am I reading this right -

I should feel sorry for deadbeat dads (I realize this group may include a small number of mothers) who screwed over their children, manage to live to 62 - 66, and want to collect SS?

Sorry - I just can't work up any concern. OTOH - the interest charges should be reduced.