Louise Slaughter: “I would like to give a little history, if I may. I have worked through three legislatures trying to do something about…”

“I would like to give a little history, if I may. I have worked through three legislatures trying to do something about children under the poverty line, the vast majority of them there because alimony was not paid. Indeed, we had a whole phraseology, the deadbeat dad, concerning ourselves with children who had no recourse. We tried a lot of remedies on the county and State levels, and some worked pretty well. But the best thing we did was 9 years ago, we went to the Committee on the Judiciary under Jack Brooks and asked him to make certain that child support took precedence over other debts, including credit cards. Mr. Speaker, it has made a massive difference in the economic status of children who are the sorrowful price of divorce. For 9 years it has worked well, and I want to say that 9 years ago it was bipartisan, and I think there was not a voice spoken against this raised in the House of Representatives. But suddenly now 9 years later, we decide that credit card companies are more important than our children and where they are going to be able to eat and wear clothes and have a roof over their head. Mr. Speaker, this matters to a lot of us. Children are going to suffer if credit cards takes precedence over all other debts. I doubt there was a deadbeat dad. I used to think there was someone struggling out there who had to pay his credit card first before he could help out his children. For heaven's sake, let us not go back to that. It has worked for 9 years.”