Sample MAFIA Letter To Elected Representatives

Sample Letter from MAFIA Visitors:

The Honorable (name)
United States Senate (or House)
Washington, DC 20510 (or 20515)

Dear Senator (or Representative) _____________:

As a constituent, I would like to draw your attention to the "real plight" faced by custodial parents who are being forced to raise their children without the financial assistance of the other parent. You have no doubt received a number of letters and phone calls from individuals who claim that as non-custodial parents, their rights are being violated. Groups that represent these individuals are claiming that the payment of child support should not be the focus of your legislative efforts. They encourage you to focus on programs that will enable the non-custodial parent to become more involved in the lives of their children. They encourage you to support legislative efforts that will reduce the amounts of child support that should be paid.

A recent article in the Orlando (Florida) Sentinal reached the conclusion that since the Florida Depatment of Revenue and two contractors were unable to successfully collect child support was because deadbeat parents are, in fact, broke and unable to pay child support. The non-custodial rights groups have seized upon this article as proof to what they have been claiming for a long time: That child support obligations are too high and that the primary reason child support is not being paid is because non-custodial parents are "broke" and "can't afford to pay child support".

Nothing could be further from the truth. The government agencies are failing because they don't aggressively pursue deadbeat parents. Despite all of the laws that have been passed to allow aggressive child support enforcement, these laws are rarely used. Judges routinely slap a deadbeat's hand, and tell him or her to pay the child support or the next time he or she will go to jail, and never follow through with the threat. Someone who has rarely paid any child support is told to pay a measley $25 or $50 a month to the arrears. And, when the payments aren't made, nothing is done to the individual in a timely manner. It usually takes months, if not years before anyone does something with the case again.

To further dispel the myth that deadbeat parents are "broke" and "can't afford to pay child support" you may be interested to know that private child support collection agencies that contract directly with custodial parents are claiming success rates as high as 70% - compared to success rates of only 20% for government agencies. It could be that these private agencies know something about dealing with deadbeat parents that the government agencies don't know - or are unwilling to implement.

I would like to encourage you and your staff to investigate the plight of custodial parents and why they aren't able to receive the child support payments that they are entitled to. With unemployment at an all time low, there is absolutely no reason why non-custodial parents can not pay child support. Even if they can not afford to pay the full amount that was ordered, they could pay at a minimum, 50% of what was ordered. What it all boils down to is that they simply do not want to make a sacrifice for their children. To justify their position, they claim that the "system" is unfair to them - and that if there was joint custody and shared parenting, they would be willing to become involved with their children. Giving deadbeat parents - and the groups that enable them to be deadbeat parents - what they want will only serve to give them more loop-holes to avoid contributing to their children.

Please do not allow this insanity to continue. Please take the time to discover why private agencies that are contracting directly with custodial parents are collecting for 70% of their clients. Both the American Collectors Association and the American Child Support Collection Association can provide you with this type of information.

Sincerely yours,