John Washington III: Texas Child Support System Was 'Built to Feed Itself,' and the Money Belongs to the Children
John Washington III argues the child support system serves itself before families: federal money follows collections, Texas takes licenses from parents who fall behind and charges 6 percent interest — and he says a parent who falls behind should get a path back, not a trap.
John Washington III has laid out his case against the way child support is run in Texas, arguing that the system was built to feed itself rather than to help parents. In his November 6 statement, he wrote that the system 'does not have the parents' best interest at heart. Not the mother. Not the father. It has its OWN interest at heart' — and that Texas does not care, because, he wrote, Texas benefits from the system exactly the way it is.
His argument follows the money. The federal government pays states bonus money based on how much child support they collect, he wrote, and picks up most of the cost of running the program — so the more money the system pulls out of parents, the more money flows back to the state. 'Parents are not the customer. Parents are the product,' he wrote. 'A system that gets paid by the collection will always choose collection over common sense, every single time.'
He pointed to two mechanics he called a trap. When a parent falls behind, the state comes after the driver's license — 'the one thing he needs to drive to work and earn the money to pay it,' he wrote — and Texas charges interest at six percent on a balance the parent already could not pay. And in cases where a family needed public assistance, he wrote, the state can keep collected support to pay itself back first: 'The children wait in line behind the government.'
John Washington III was explicit about what he is not arguing. 'I am not talking about parents who refuse to take care of their children,' he wrote. 'A child deserves support, and a parent who can pay should pay — that money belongs to the kids.' What he described instead was 'a machine that profits from struggle, punishes people out of a paycheck, and calls it justice.' His stated fix, as a presidential candidate: rebuild child support around one rule — 'the money goes to the children, and a parent who falls behind gets a path back — work, a fair review, and a real chance to catch up. Keep your license. Keep your job. Keep supporting your kids.'
