Lynn C. Woolsey: “over $5 billion in child support goes uncollected every year. This is a national disgrace that is punishing our children…”

“over $5 billion in child support goes uncollected every year. This is a national disgrace that is punishing our children and bankrupting our welfare system. Tonight I am pleased to be joined by many of my Democratic colleagues to call attention to this tragedy and to call on the 104th Congress to make child support collection a top priority as we work to reform the welfare system. Democrats have long recognized that holding both parents responsible for their children is the most cost-effective way to reduce the welfare rolls. Why then, we ask, is there no mention of child support in the Republican's welfare reform bill? Why then did it take so much prodding to get the Republican leadership to even schedule a hearing on child support collection? Do they not know that getting family child support is one of the best ways to get them off welfare? Mr. Speaker, I have known for over 25 years just how important child support is in preventing the need for welfare, because in 1968 I was a single working mother with three small children, ages 1, 3, and 5. Although I had a court order, I never received a penny in child support. In order to provide my children with the health care and child care they needed, I was forced to go on welfare to supplement my wages. Today, Mr. Speaker, millions of families are forced to go on welfare for the same reason.”