According to many, whose politics lean towards the far right, welfare mothers are those worthless, shiftless lazy, crack-smoking women who drain this country's resources by irresponsibly reproducing an army of fatherless, hungry children whose only goal in life is to suck the profits right out of their pockets.

Contrary to this popular belief, many women who accept Aid for Dependent Families or food stamps actually supply the funds for these services themselves.

Or rather, to be more accurate, the funds are supplied from child support payments made by the fathers of that hungry, taxdollar-guzzling horde. These welfare women collect only the first $50 paid each month in child support - the balance of the funds is kept by the collecting agency (in this case Pulaski County) to repay any funds they have accepted in order to feed and house their children.

Another little-known fact is that is some cases, the government is actually making money from these people. How is that done? Well, that's pretty simple. It comes from instances where the child support received is higher than any doled out welfare funds.

You see, the excess funds are not given to the mother. According to Arkansas statute, she only gets the first $50. The government agency takes the balance and sticks it in a fund which is ostensibly set aside to repay any past tax monies the mother accepted before the child support began to be collected.

Single mothers who receive AFDC, food stamps, live in government- subsidized housing, or receive child-support payments are the only group of people required by law to repay every penny of govemment- funded support they receive. No other group of people, receiving government funds on a supposed temporary basis, is required to pay back one penny of advanced funds.

Not only are their child support checks confiscated by the state while they receive these government services, but also long after they have left the dole - until every penny they received has been paid in full.

Now, in my opinion, someone is getting extremely short-changed here. Either taxpayers are, by demanding only one classification of welfare recipient repay any funds advanced, or these poor single mothers.

Ihave a feeling it's both groups. It's sort of like the old adage, "six of one and half-adozen of the other" - each group is equally being shafted.

It only seems fair that if one group of welfare recipients either subsidizes or repays their own public assistance, then any person on the dole should do the same, unless of course they have been deemed physically incapable of performing any type of work.

How can it be fair to require only one particular segment to repay these funds? It isn't! Either all should pay these funds or none. That is the only way to be fair.

Personally, if it was my sole decision, none would have to repay these funds only because I believe that with the extra child support income certain welfare recipients have more than a fighting chance to improve their lives.

You just can't tell someone to get off the dole and go out to work - not when the cost of working (child and health care) is often 50 percent or more of someone's take home pay. Those extra funds received in the form of child support can often be the crucial difference between a struggling family sinking or swimming.

Think about it. We tell a woman she has to get off her duff and find a job, which probably because she's never worked before, will be at minimum wage. That means her take-home income every month will be approximately $740 after Social Security and other taxes are withheld.

From that measly amount she has to pay rent, utilities and buy groceries. In addition, if she has children under the age of 12, by law she is required to have some type of child care for them while she works. And folks, child care "ain't cheap." In fact, local child care rates start at $50 per child per week - and that's for the basic no-fiills or thrins deal.

If you do the math, it's readily apparent that not only is this person going to have a hard time housing and feeding her children, but chances are she'll try to save a few bucks by taking a very dangerous risk and leaving them home unattended.

That puts their welfare square back in our laps - now we have a horde of hungry, unattended children running around on the loose, committing all sorts of mischief and mayhem. Geez, you'd think that even those who aren't rocket scientists could figure that one out!

It seems to be danged short-sighted of us to stymie the very means of solving this problem by withholding someone's child support so any assistance received in the past can be repaid.

Oh, by the way, for those who think that Arkansas is always scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as statistics and ranking go - our welfare mothers are better off here than in some other states. They at least get to keep the first $50. In some states, such as Florida, the government gets it all!

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If you would like to drop the author a note about the article please email to deborah@ipa.net

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