If California entrepreneurs can turn CAFO crap into energy, then the hoghouse of Senate Bill 179 must have some real power potential. (Sorry—the Legislature inspires poop metaphors.)
Senate Bill 179 started out as Senator Jordan Youngberg’s (R-8/Madison) interesting idea to provide a central website, run by the Secretary of State, where city councils, school boards, sanitary districts, state agencies, and anyone else required to post legal and other official notices could post said notices instead of shelling out cash to the local newspaper. That seems reasonably forward-thinking, since the Rapid City Journal’s reduction this month in its printing schedule reminds us that newspapers are dying and that it’s a lot cheaper to deliver electrons to all of our magic handheld TVs than to tote dead tree matter to everyone’s door (consider how much news I deliver to how many people across how many miles from the comfort of my couch, without using a single roll of newsprint or putting a single mile on my bike).
Senator Youngberg would have allowed the Secretary of State to charge up to $10 for each posting. For that price, he proposed a ridiculously low uptime requirement of 90% (come on, Jordan—even my humble blog appears to be up better than 99% of the time).
I’m sure the newspaper lobby communicated its displeasure with such 21st-century thinking to Senator Youngberg. Last week in Senate Local Government, Senator Youngberg said SB 179 was just a constituent bill and that he wasn’t terribly interested in publishing legal notices online. He surrendered his bill to Senator Troy Heinert (D-26/Mission) for a full hoghouse to a completely different topic.
Joking to the committee that he uses smoke signals back where he comes from and forgot to hit a button in the new online bill-management system, Senator Heinert proposed Amendment 179A to drop the public notice language and instead amend the state’s debt collection rules to allow folks who owe the state money to keep their driver licenses and vehicle registrations. Under Heinert’s proposal, the only thing you lose if you try to skip out on paying your bills to the state would be your hunting license, fishing license, state park permit, and camping permit. Heinert would also have the state keep the power to deny debtors a professional, occupational, sporting, or recreational license for going deadbeat on child support, but it would raise the threshold for arrears triggering that punishment from $1000 to $2000. Youngberg even stepped aside as sponsor and asked the Senate to redesignate Heinert as prime on SB 179.
Senate Local Government o.k.’ed the amendment last week then deferred discussion for digestion until today. They take up the new SB 179 right after breakfast today, 7:45 a.m., in Capitol Room 412.
The designation “deadbeats” in this headline seems quite unfortunate. Having worked with people in financial trouble for many years I can assure you that as a general rule they are not simply “deadbeats.” Every single person has a reason why they are in financial trouble, from medical problems, loss of jobs, being victims of fraud or scams, accidents, family problems and needs of family members, as well as many other circumstances that would suddenly undermine the financial security of you or me.
A little empathy goes a long way.
Empathy is a dirty foreign word to the present occupant of the kremlin annex and millions of his devoted tools, like the phony kristian ones in Pierre and other statehouses. Must stem from all the victim hood wingnuts bestow on themselves after they get caught with their pants down or hands in the cookie jar.
As for deadbeats, since I was at one time saddled with that shame, it wouldn’t hurt to have an independent board examine cases where arrears are large and consider what , if any steps can be taken to help alleviate the problem.
It may have done wonders in my individual case and not left me with bitter memories of iowa state government and the biased court system when it came to handling child support for both parties, not just the guys.
Sometime, like in Mr. Heinert’s case, deadbeats choose to be dead beats because they intentionally don’t pay their bills. Mr. Heinert has admitted as much. They should change this law bill to send out goon squads on the deadbeats instead of just taking their car away.
Sorry, Bear—I think the Trump era has eroded my own empathy… alas.
But those Pischke-ites skipping their child support payments deserve no breaks. And is there not some value in maintaining some level of stigma for not paying one’s bills? Everyone has a reason for not paying their bills, and for some of them, the reason is, just didn’t want to pay my bills.
That said, maybe we could progressivize our state’s debt collection sticks. Maybe we should have an arrears threshold for all debtors, not just the debt collectors. Better yet, maybe those thresholds should depend on income. Maybe we don’t withhold any license from folks not clearing the poverty line. Maybe we limit the recreational licenses for every debtor whose income is between poverty and some level of income. and maybe we really fry the debtors we find who are making good money and just stiffing the state.
Or we just get off the debt collection binge altogether and tax the rich. I mean, the amount of money poor people are keeping from our coffers by not paying their state bills must be a pittance compared to the handouts the trust lawyers and corporate honchos get from our state.
I’m all for empathy, except when it comes to child support to the custodial parent.
SD and every other state needs an effective and quick response for a family to keep the children off the poverty rolls. Statistics have repeatedly and convincingly showed that children who grow up in poverty live less fruitful lives by every economic metric, in addition to being less healthy.
In fact, child support is often set too low and it should be paid to and enforced by the state, which would disburse monthly checks to the custodial parent. That way the custodial parent would have a reliable source of income to meet the child’s needs and the state would deal with any failure to pay.
And yeah, tax the rich, Sen. Warren’s 2c wealth tax on everything above $50 million. Plus a progressive income tax in SD.
Child support debt is often merely a euphemism for a debt owed by an indigent non-custodial parent or NCP (usually the father) to the state for TANF assistance to an indigent custodial parent or CP (usually the mother). Typically the support obligation is established by an ex parte court order or a court order obtained against an unrepresented NCP alleged to be a biological parent. In such cases the NCP simply cannot afford an attorney while the State or County, but not the CP, is represented by a deputy States Attorney. Any and all money collected typically goes only to the State or County rather than to the CP.
In other cases a NCP defendant may have lost a job and as a result is unable to pay a prior support order and unable to pay for legal help needed to seek a court ordered modification or reduction of the monthly obligation.
Other public debtors include indigents charged with a crime who qualify for court-appointed counsel, sometimes a public defender and sometimes a private attorney that bills the county for attorneys fees. This debt arises in cases where there is a conviction and in cases where charges are dismissed, the case dismissed or the defendant acquitted after trial. Either way the accused now owes a public debt.
Similarly, an indigent NCP that seeks to obtain custody of a child in cases where the child is removed by the State from the CP for alleged abuse or neglect ends up with a debt to the County or State for court-appointed counsel.
Other such debts arise when an individual without insurance (or that individual’s spouse or child) is in an accident or sick enough to need emergency medical treatment. Typically, the County poor relief program or State becomes legally obligated to pay for the medical treatment and places a lien for this cost on the individual.
Interestingly, if an individual has sufficient resources or income above the minimal statutory exemptions (See SDCL ch. 43-45), the state is able to collect by seizing and selling non-exempt property or garnishing wages. Those people who merely “just didn’t want to pay my bills” would seem to fall within this group.
Most people punished by statutes revoking driver’s licenses or other privileges, however, are not typically those that“just didn’t want to pay my bills.” Instead they are those without the ability or resources to repay these public obligations, frequently through no real fault of their own.
That said, there are true deadbeats out there that simply choose not to pay legitimate public debts and can even afford to abuse the legal system to avoid the forcible seizure and sale of non-exempt property. Indeed, we elected one such deadbeat as our current President of the United States.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/08/trump-rallies-unpaid-bills-039631
Not sure what the state accomplishes throwing indigents in jail for failure to pay child support and then charging them for the privilege of being arrested and incarcerated, when the state already knows they can’t pay and can’t work to pay bills unless they have the money to bond out each day to work.
Debbo says….SD and every other state needs an effective and quick response for a family to keep the children off the poverty rolls.
That would entail states to sue to force employers to pay a substantial living wage, which will not happen. Wingnuts don’t care about poor people except when they take away meager benefits because the koch bro demands moar taxcuts. You see what I did with koch bro, not plural anymoar since Charles checked out.
Wingnuts only guilt feeling about money is for the wealthy who don’t have enough.
https://the-immoral-minority.com/the-us-ranks-39th-in-childrens-well-being/
You can chant “USA!” til the cows come home but you can’t change the facts, until you actually try to change the facts.
Courtesy of CNN:
The United States ranks lower than 38 other countries on measurements of children’s survival, health, education and nutrition — and every country in the world has levels of excess carbon emissions that will prevent younger generations from a healthy and sustainable future, according to a new report.