Fiscal Cliff Examines How We Care For Children

Does this make any sense to you?

Average Earned Income Credit (EIC): $2,200

Adoption Tax Credit: $12,650  + Adoption Subsidy: $7,740 = $20,390

We are willing to pay a stranger over $20,000 a year to raise someone else's child who was poor/low income* but will only provide a tax credit of $2,000 to a natural family?  This is a 1:10 ratio.

* For clarification purposes, reference to an economic descriptive is to illuminate the fact many families cannot access mental health services for a child unless there is a voluntary child abuse case filed in the court.  Some states will call it "incorrigibility".  This is the only way to access funding for a child's mental health services because these services do not exist outside of foster care or private insurance companies refuse coverage.  Some have calculated foster care costs over $80 billion a year, majority reimbursed through Medicaid, because the nation refuses to talk about mental health.

The adoption child tax credit is a good way of helping children  but I only want to know why there is such a disparity.  The playing field needs to be leveled. 

Adoption Tax Credit Could Fall Off Fiscal Cliff

The adoption child tax credit is one of the many parts of the U.S. tax code that could change dramatically on Jan. 1, 2013, if Congress and President Barack Obama do not act.

Adoption advocates worry the During the President George W. Bush administration the adoption tax credit was increased from $6,000 to $12,650 and made refundable (meaning that even families who do not pay taxes can receive the credit.) This was part of a larger package of changes to the tax code, including rate cuts, that were set to expire in 2010. In March 2010, the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare," extended the expanded adoption tax credit through 2011. In December 2010, Congress and Obama agreed to a two-year extension of all the Bush tax code changes, so they are now set to expire at the end of 2012.

Congress is currently meeting in a "lame duck" session and these changes, part of the so-called fiscal cliff, will be a large part of the agenda.

If no changes are made, the adoption tax credit will return to $6,000 and non-refundable. As many now know because of Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" gaffe, about half of wage earners paid no income tax last year, after taking into account all deductions and credits. These families would receive no help through the tax code with the costs of adoption if the credit returns to being non-refundable.

The adoption tax credit was also made "flat" for special needs adoptions to encourage the adoption of children in foster care. This means that families who adopt children who qualify as special needs can claim the full credit without having to claim qualified expenses.

A study by Mary Hansen, associate professor of economics at American University, found that because children raised in foster care have more difficulties as adults, each child adopted from foster care saves about $235,000 in costs to the government over the life of the child.

To raise awareness of the adoption tax credit, 139 adoption and child welfare organizations have joined Save the Adoption Tax Credit. For more information about the adoption tax credit, visit its website or Facebook page.

It should be noted that the Adoption Tax Credit and Subsidy was not calculated into the estimated costs of child welfare report. 2012 Estimated Costs of Child Welfare Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Fiscal Cliff Hurts Children

As the date looms for what is called the "fiscal cliff" there is very little discussion on what this actually means to the low income family.

To begin with, a major part of this "fiscal cliff" has to deal with the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) which expired in 2011.  This means taxes are going to increase on Middle and Lower Class families, but let us examine the impact on Lower Class families.

Tax returns, or more specifically the Earned Income Credit (EIC) will be delayed.  The EIC is the lifeline for low income communities and in most cases, it is the last hope for struggling families.

In many instances, low income families file for the EIC to keep a roof over their heads.  Many are single mothers who do not work, mostly because there are no jobs and a lack of transportation to jobs that traditionally pay minimum wage.  These parents supplement their income with odd service jobs to make ends meet.

So, let's examine what would happen is the EIC is delayed until March 2013 or later.

Many cannot afford Christmas gifts for the family.  This is why local economies will be injected with a boost with shopping sprees for the children.  Local merchants would not generate the traditional January business (early filing) and would be stuck with overstock.  More than that, these merchants who rely upon this boom would not be able to make quarterly property and income tax payments.  Struggling businesses may be forced to shut down.

Also, many families use this EIC to pay property taxes.  When property taxes are not paid, there would be created an artificial whole in local governmental budgets, affecting public services and payless paydays.

The EIC is issued during the coldest months of the year, forcing many families to turn to state assistance to stay in their homes and keep the heat on.  The burden of increased applications for social assistance would in turn strain local governmental budgets, which are already facing unexpected unpaid property taxes.

In some events, educational, medical and child welfare service budgets, already strained, would be pushed to the brink of implosion as children would be forced to rely upon the system because of the delay of the EIC.

As Congress plays the political game of tax rates, keep in mind, taxpayers will pay in the end and it will mostly be the children of the Middle and Lower Classes.

It is time to include children in the tax debates.

IRS Letter on Delay of 2012 Tax Returns

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Obamacare, Kids and a Fiscal Cliff

Children's programming being thrown off the fiscal cliff

The Michigan Legislature is one of the several states that chose not to participate in expansion of the Medicaid program (a.k.a. Obamacare).   What this means for Michigan is that the state is about to miss out on crucial funding opportunities to help kids.

Of course, there are people who will immediately question the correlations between kids and Medicaid funding and the looming fiscal cliff but I will, with the greatest enjoyment, explain.

There is a battle looming over the entitlement programs of social welfare.  I strong-heartedly agree that these entitlement programs, complete with its policies, are archaic, riddled with fraud, waste and abuse, all running off incomplete data that is always, if states decide to report, at least two years behind.

In the age of informational technology there is one last variable that must be identified in the miserable operations of the child welfare programs and that is secrecy.  Child welfare programs operate under grants of immunity and shield of FOIA.  This means that there is no improvement unless it comes from the inside.

Here is an example of Michigan obviating internal policy damage control.  Michigan is about to expand the authority to remove a child from the home and terminate parental rights based on the definition of "unfit environment" and the prediction of an "unfit environment".

For those of you who recall my outspokenness on the equal parenting initiatives, you will understand that my position was on the determination of fitness.  According to current law, if a person is determined by the court to be unfit, then termination of parental rights proceedings are initiated.

What Michigan did was to embrace the "fitness" argument and dress it up as propaganda.  What I mean by propaganda is it hides it true intentions.  The parent or custodian is not questioned on personal "fitness" as a parent for it is the environment.  The environmental standard is built upon a morality platform where if it is found there are violations of law, including federal, or deprivation, where I interpret this to be a broad application of moral turpitude, the state can intervene and immediate commence termination of parental rights proceedings.

The Bill also proposes to give the predictive powers to determine future fitness to the Court.  It is even proposed that the state will have discretion to not provide reunification services.

So how is this all related to the fiscal cliff, state anti-obamacare legislation and kids?  Medical marijuana seems to be picking up steam on a national level.  Many people in poor neighborhoods find marijuana to be acceptable in recreational usage.  The moral majority in the state legislature does not like this.  Marijuana should be regulated for its medicinal purposes through pharmafarms.

A pharmafarm (a term I have created) is where the pharmaceutical industries come into the inner cities and farm the land with medical marijuana to clean the soil from the heavy metal toxins to prep for full agricultural usage.

Medical marijuana grown and sold by pharmaceutical industries is cost reimbursed under the Medicaid program, creates jobs and the corporations are taxable.  Think of it as an investment industry preparing for the big repeal of its prohibition.

Removing children from a parent, as Michigan operates under the "one parent" doctrine. based on the actions of one parent will allow the state to end its obligation of entitlement programs to the parent(s) and child as the child will now be fast tracked under federally funded adoption subsidies or uncapped placements in residential institutions.  For the older youth, there is the  Supportive Independent Living programs but those are woefully under funded and provide for no mental health assistance.

Since Michigan has made very little provision for the full implementation of obamacare, the only way kids can access medical services will be through state intervention.

This is Michigan's answer to poverty.

To make the historic story of foster care and adoption short and sweet, allow me to cost-effectively sum up the policy for the Industry of Human Trafficking: Poverty is abuse and neglect. Abuse and neglect is a crime. A parent(s) who is poor abuses and neglects the child. The state must protect the welfare of the child. The state never questions the work of God. Foster care and adoption residential institutions are in the name of God. People and corporations make tax write-off financial contributions to the institutions. Children get medicated; pharmaceutical companies get profit; social workers get jobs. The longer a child is in foster care; the more jobs are sustained. Sustaining and creating jobs saves money for the state. Foster parenting is a job. The state and the institutions are given financial incentives and receive financial rewards for each child transitioned into adoption. Michigan needs to make budget cuts. Michigan needs to create more jobs. Foster parenting is significantly more economical than an institution. Adoptive families receive financial rewards for each child adopted. The state no longer is financially responsible for the child. The state is no longer financially responsible for the birth parent. Everyone contributes to the economy. A stronger economy eradicates poverty. Poverty is a crime. When you stop poverty, you stop abuse and neglect.

LK: http://legallykidnapped.blogspot.com/2008/10/human-trafficking-institutional-style.html#ixzz2Bx1xhNLs

According to the Bill, a person does not have to convicted of a crime, just found to have violated.  Can you imagine a child being removed from the home because a parent did not pay taxes?  This is the logic behind the entire child welfare policy.  If the state is going to pay for raising your child, then the state is going to have the ultimate final say on how and where the child is to be raised.  The goal is to raise a child to be productive and hopefully a tax-paying citizen.  

The other goal is to create jobs through new businesses investing in social impact opportunities.  This gets the state out of the business of taking care of kids and prevents another fiscal cliff from ever forming again.  

There will be no need for obamacare and the other entitlement programs are eliminated.


Michigan Senate Analysis On Bills To Expand Authority To Terminate Parental Rights
Even though this may be extremely intrusive policy, there has yet to be any other viable fiscal option presented.  It does not raise taxes and creates efficiency, but at what cost?

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