Saturday, April 18, 2009

Who dat is? Dat just my baby daddy, times 14



We here at Global Domination Through Applied Inactivity strongly encourage deadbeat dads to pay their child support. Furthermore, we encourage people who can’t afford kids to kindly keep their junk in their pants and avoid such situations or at least take responsible countermeasures in direct defiance of the Catholic Church.

Besides, there’s a lot of you out there who simply should not breed, under any circumstances. The gene pool is assed up enough already without further dilution.

My mom had a hard enough time raising me on her own, but the task was made that much more difficult by my own father’s delinquency. Back then, the state wasn’t all that arduous about pursuing court-ordered support, and my mom didn’t push the issue; her philosophy was that if he didn’t want to come around for visitation or pay his part in my upbringing, then piss on him. (Gee, bitter much, Steve? But I digress…)

I have mixed feelings about the way states pursue child support payments these days. I’ve known a few guys, and known of many others, who’ve either had to serve time in jail or been threatened with jail time for getting behind in their payments. Some people are serial deadbeats, and some just fall behind due to the economy. Conversely, I’ve also known moms who are unwilling to work with their exes when they fall into money problems and refuse to work out a solution, and just have the father jailed for spite, and others who refuse to work and just sit back and expect to be taken care of. You can’t lump it al into one blanket statement about every case, since you really need to look at each case individually.

My buddy Chris had a tough go of it economically for a few weeks around the holidays, and was trying hard to make ends meet with his current wife while they awaited the birth of their first child together. While his first wife was a pain in the ass about the support for the child from that marriage, his second wife was extremely reasonable about the support for their two shared children. Thankfully, he was quickly able to get everything caught up again and things are copasetic once more in his universe.

My friend Scott missed a couple months of work in jail on non-payment, and it went on his record as a felony, so now as a convicted felon he can’t own a firearm for self-protection. He had to beg for his job back, and start at the bottom rung again having lost any and all seniority he’d built.

I’m fortunate, I guess, in that I have no biological children. I don’t have that in my life as an issue. Some of you would say that I’ve missed out by not being a parent, but it’s a moot point. Again, I digress…

Authorities in Flint, Michigan say a man who fathered 14 children, all with different women, owes more than $530,000 in unpaid child support. Holy shit, Batman. I know kids are expensive, but dayum.

The man, Thomas Frazier, aged 42, was jailed last week. Court records say he owes six years of support payments. Doing the quick math, that’s an average of $6309.00 per child per year. When you divide that sum out, it’s an average of $525.75 a month, per child. Times 14. Times 6.

The local Flint newspaper says the unemployed man could be held for 90 days if he doesn't pay $27,900. Sure thing, man. Don’t we all just have a spare thirty large kicking around in a coffee can for a rainy day? Can a brother get a bailout? Hey, Congress, how about the Baby Daddy Stimulus Package?

Frazier owes one woman about $40,000 for a 14-year-old daughter. A Genesee County judge ordered Frazier to spend 90 days in jail unless he comes up with $4,100 for her.

Even if he comes up with that money, the judge ordered him to spend 90 days in jail on another case. On top of that, the judge gave him 45 days jail on six other cases. In all, Frazier is looking at three months in jail unless he comes up with at least $27,900.

Frazier says he thinks he fathered only three of the children and that it's unrealistic for authorities to expect him to pay child support that was $3,000 a month at one point. What average working stiff makes that in a month?

Frazier remains held at the Genesee County Jail. It wasn't immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak for him. And even if he did, how he’d pay that lawyer is uncertain.

Does it really serve anybody any good to jail someone who is behind on his child support? I mean, if you’re in jail, you aren’t working, and if you aren’t working, then you sure as hell aren’t makng any money to pay the support, right? And while you’re in jail, you’re most likely LOSING YOUR JOB, and that doesn’t exactly help the situation, since you now no longer have a job to pay the payments. And when you get out of jail, you still have to pay up, and now you’re farther behind, plus the money accrued as you sat in jail not making any money. So of course, you’re even farther behind, and then they jail you again because you’re farther behind, and thusly a cycle is perpetuated into a vicious circle.

How much is your state spending on chasing down deadbeats?

And then you have a broke-ass guy taking up space in an already overcrowded jail, space better spent on rapists and child molesters and murderers, plus the cost to feed, clothe, and house that guy in the aforementioned overcrowded jail.

And to think, my insurance covered my vasectomy… my co-pay for the initial consult was $35.00, and the doc billed my procedure as in-office, so that was another $35.00 co-pay, for a total of $70.00 and another 99 cents for a bag of frozen peas (don’t ask). Or, a big box of condoms runs you under 15 bucks if you don’t want to get snipped.

Take responsibility, or pay the price one way or another.

As a post-script, Frazier is no angel. He remained under the radar until late last month when he got pulled over in Iowa for a broken taillight on his Mercedes.

In his pocket, police found $5,000 in cash and plane tickets to Florida. Frazier said he is unemployed and local officials said they do not know what he does for a living.

The cop tossed him in jail on child support warrants and then had him delivered Wednesday to the Genesee County Jail. His current jail term aside, Frazier is also looking at further legal woes for his probation violation cases.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton is not in a forgiving mood, noting that Frazier was rolling around in a Mercedes Benz with thousands of dollars and plane tickets at the same time he wasn't paying his child support.

We should set him up on a date with the OctoFruit, Nadya Suleman. Together they’ll have 28 kids, enough to start a football team.

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