Talk:Bradley Amendment

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Political capital[edit]

Has anyone looked into the how much political support if any Bradley garnered from this bill? Has he commented on special cases - coma cases, etc? Has he ever been extremely poor? In other words, is he able to empathize with the plight of a poor father whose wife decided she perhaps could do better and whose job was outsourced to India or Mexico, for example?

I think that answers to these kinds of questions would improve the article.

24.206.125.213 10:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI[reply]

Votes for deletion archived debate[edit]

Article listed on WP:VFD Aug 25 to Sep 21 2004, consensus was to keep following reqrites. Discussion:

Nothing much but POV, and very whiny POV at that. KeithTyler
Rossami pulled it off. I rescind nomination to VFD and change vote to Keep in its new form. - KeithTyler 05:22, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)

  • It could be worth having an article on this. Has it been on cleanup?—Rory ☺ 19:27, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)
    • Vote delete; this is always going to be contentious in this incarnation.—Rory ☺ 13:17, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. Much better now. Good job. —Rory ☺ 10:53, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
  • Real law. Real social problem that has been independently discussed. Unwikified and POV first draft, but that's cause for Clean-up, not deletion. Keep. Might need renaming because essentially every amendment proposed by Senator Bradley gets called the "Bradley Amendment". Rossami 22:03, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I am the author of the Bradley Amendment page, Jeff relf 23:03, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC) .

I prefer the term Bradley Amendment because that is how it is referred to in technical articles: 

 The 1986 U.S. law nicknamed the Bradley Amendment.

A contents section could be added if someone wanted to add yet another Bradley admentment. This page is about how uncaring the U.S. Congress bureaucracy has become. A bureaucracy that won't even allow a state, much less a judge, to consider individual cases. It is of particular concern to all males, especially those in the U.S.

Boy, this needs MAJOR work! At least cleanup, at best, delete it and start over. RickK 23:15, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

  • Rossami is right that clean up is appropriate, if clean up can do it. We need a lawyer or a contemporary historian, and no divorced fathers or ideologues. That's a tall order for Clean Up. Let it go there with an amendment in its discussion saying that it ought to come back here, with prejudice, if it is unimproved in a month. Before anyone says it, I do have a reason for putting a time limit on it: the persistence of a rant on our space is unlike the persistence of a stub. It leaves us prejudicial and POV. Geogre 23:18, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Changing vote to delete: I think we'd be leaving a rant too long, and we're just going to have an edit war with one or another person. Better to have a hole, IMO, than to give the world the wrong impression of our goals or practices. Geogre 12:56, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Rossami's rewrite and efforts and helping the article along have convinced me to say we should keep it. Geogre 04:43, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

____

Hah.

All *knowledge* is subjective. The winners write the histories as it was once said.

If you think that you can write some kind of antiseptic "truth" in this Wikipedia -- I think you are sorely mistaken.

I know Jeff. I know that his life has been severely affected by the Bradley Amendment.

Is that not knowledge?

Jeff is exposing not only the Amendment, but its deleterious affect on Men. And why not? He "knows" through experience.

The Wikipedia claims to be an "encyclopedia" -- and it uses a form of Open Source Knowledge to do so...yet, here you are, the Pharasees of truth, trying to censure it.

For shame...for shame...

john bailo http://home.earthlink.net/~jabailo

We're not trying to censure, NOR censor anything. We just want an article that makes some sort of sense. RickK 07:29, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

  • You, Rick K., want:
" an article that makes some sort of sense " ?

I think the page that I created does at least a fair job of explaining a very important U.S. law. One that is much discussed by the U.S. government itself, state and local. Feel free to do better yourself.

I provided an example, the only one I know about. Examples are not evil POVs, they are the best teaching tool.

I welcome you all to also add your own examples, if you have them. The more the better. And no, I don't care if your examples are radically different than mine. --Jeff relf 09:47, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)


It is not sufficient to couch your own personal opinions in wording such as "some people say" or "it is believed by some". You cannot possibly claim NPOV for this article, because not only does it slant the treatment of the subject very narrowly towards your own opinions (there is nothing from any opposing view, no pro- arguments taken from Congressional records or court cases to baland the con- arguments, etc.), but it is deliberately written to evoke a certain value judgement in the reader, with off-topic details of worst-case exaggerated hypothetical cases. After all of that, the article ends with "One way or another, this is an abuse." (Plenty of other statements are borderline POV though written as if to pretend that they are not, such as "This renders all state statutes of limitations meaningless.")

It is clear, if only from that last statement, that the purpose of creating this article on the subject was for you to push an agenda, which is POV.

Nor is NPOV best achieved by a battle of contrarian examples (which I could easily give you from my own family's experiences) being waged in the edit history of an article. An encyclopedia is the summarization and culmination of facts and considerations, not a battleground for opinion or even debate. No, an encyclopedia should stand back from the battle and then report on how the dust settles.

It should strive not to take sides, as your article plainly has.

I don't think there is anything much at all salvagable in the current article. There is too much to strip away and nothing readily available to replace it with.

KeithTyler 19:50, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete. This article is so POV and confused that it might be a parody intended to mock those opposed to the Bradley Amendment. Jallan 20:26, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Clean up.
 But show real-live examples, 
 as vague notions of so-called noncustodial parents 
 is damn near incomprehensible.
 If, as seems likely, no one is interested in doing that,
 and if, as also seem evident, 
 you don't trust me to do the cleaning... 
 Then remember this: 
   People will remain ignorant of this law.

--Jeff relf 05:43, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

    • People are already ignorant of thousands of laws. This is not a vehicle to push your own agenda, even just to selectively promote the one law that you are most concerned about. That's the point. This is an encylopedia, not a pamphleteering forum. KeithTyler 17:17, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)
      • This law effects all Americans, not just me. It also effects people in other countries, as we live in a very global society. The law is not being promoted as you claim, it is being explained. I created the page, people were repulsed by my example, so I hand it over to you guys. If you want to clean it up, as you say, then I think that'd be a good idea. If you don't... well, all the more ignorance will prevail. How would that benefit you, Keith ?

--Jeff relf 23:39, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete - if the author put half the effort into trying to make a real article out of this that he's putting into arguing to keep it, we wouldn't be here. -- Cyrius|✎ 02:28, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • You imagine that I put in too little effort, do you Cyrius ? This Bradley Amendment page is the result of years of research using all the facilities at my disposal here at the Univeristy of Washington, including many technical magazines on the topic and full-text search engines like Lexis-Nexis.COM . Feel free to do a better job... if you can. By the way, what is it that makes so many people seek to purpetuate such inorance about this vital topic ? It's a total mystery to me. --Jeff relf 04:38, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
    • Rossami's rewrite, while rough, is an attempt at a real article and not a rant. Keep rewrite. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:53, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

*Delete. If there was enough substance in the article to make me interested about it, I'd certainly "feel free to do a better job," and it sure as hell wouldn't take me "years of research." I can't even tell what Act this was an amendment to, though perhaps I missed something as my eyes crossed while trying to read through the poor formatting. There is nothing worth salvaging here. Postdlf 07:17, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

    • The 1986 U.S. law nicknamed " The Bradley Amendment ", ( 42 U.S.C. 666 ( a ) ( 4 ) ) affects millions of Americans, and I explained why using an example. And you claim it has little substance ? Ok, you win... I give up. WikiPedia is off my list of favorite sites. --Jeff relf 08:02, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Ambi 13:02, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I cleaned up the text somewhat (removed leading whitespaces, etc), but the POV rant remains. Article, as is, seems unsalvagable. Delete.Dukeofomnium 13:14, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • From what I can see, most Google hits for "Bradley Amendment" seem to point to deadbeat dad advocacy sites. It does not appear in findlaw.com Dukeofomnium 13:19, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • keep as rewritten. Dukeofomnium 17:00, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I have now completely rewritten the article. Please judge it on its current merits. It's not perfect yet but no Wikipedia article ever is. The facts are all supportable. (I have no idea why Dukeofomnium could not find it in findlaw.com. Title 42 is pretty easy to find and the sub-paragraph citations were correct.) I don't think the current tone is any more POV than the cited Washington Times article or the other najor newspaper articles I found while researching this. Rossami 01:11, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • I found the law in Findlaw.com (Title 42 section 666(a)(9)(c)), but not the phrase "Bradley Amendment". I misspoke myself. I shall try to atone. Dukeofomnium 17:00, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Now keep. It still has POV problems, but it's now clearly keepworthy. Ambi 02:59, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • WADR I don't see the POV. There's opinion, but it's both balanced and attributed (not stated as fact). - KeithTyler 05:22, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
  • Changing vote to keeping rewrite—kudos to Rossami for making this a real article. I still wonder whether or not there is a better name for the article, however—it seems imprecise. Postdlf 13:48, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Considering the cultural consensus (as determined by Dukeofomnium's Google search, stated above) that "the Bradley amendment" most commonly refers to this particular law, the name is appropriate. In other words, given the cultural consensus, the majority of people looking for info on "the Bradley amendment" will be looking for this one. Given that, I would almost argue that even if we do see articles on other Bradley amendments, that this should be the default topic, with a disambiguation link preface. - KeithTyler 17:23, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep now. The current article seems NPOV, reasonably well written (probably above the Wikipedia average) and is quite comprehensible. The unsalvagable original did not even make clear what the problem was. As to its name, it could be renamed as Bradley Amendment (1986) or Bradley Amendment, 1986 or something like that to avoid confusion with any other Bradley Amendment. But that could wait until such time, if ever, that another article on another Bradley Amendement is written. Jallan 16:37, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • IMO it is OK for disambiguation to wait until there are ambiguous articles. - KeithTyler

End archived discussion -- Graham ☺ | Talk 23:01, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Challenge to statistics[edit]

In a recent edit, this text was added challenging the HHS statistics on arrearages. Unfortunately, I can't figure out the intended meaning of the edit in the context of the article. Maybe I'm just getting confused by the grammar. I'm pulling the comment to the Talk page until we can figure it out. Any help would be appreciated. Rossami (talk) 03:29, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

However, the above statistics may be misleading because child support cases are typically closed after four years of inactivity. Closed or not, the Bradley Amendment makes all arrearages final judgements, greatly simplifying collections.

HHS statistics are Very deceptive, because cases are typically closed after four years of inactivity.

Automatically making past-due child-support a Final_Judgement is how the Bradley_Amendment facilitates collection. Collection is it's raison d'etre.

I don't know why I didn't make this clearer before, but it's obvious that I'm not the only one confused by all this.

If you reject my wording or dispute my assertions, please feel free discuss it here and/or do a better job, keeping in mind the vital nature of this information. --Jeff Relf 19:17, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not disputing your assertion. I just don't understand it. How does the fact that "cases are typically closed after four years of inactivity" create bias or perception of bias in the HHS statistics? If there is bias and if that bias is relevant to the topic of this article, then we must explain it clearly enough to be understandable to any future reader/editor. I still can't make the connection. Rossami (talk) 13:07, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

HHS' statistics omitted closed cases, agreed ?

By some estimates, including U.S. census data, a million or more men have left the official work force in the last 30 years or so, disappearing into the so_called invisible economy, a.k.a. the informal economy.

So there are men and women who are effected by Automatic_Final_Judgements even though the state has closed their cases and HHS' statistics ignore them.

Automatic_Final_Judgements prevent men from reentering the visible economy for fear of losing everything in a seizure. Even when the past-due debt is 40 years old. Even when the obligee has long since become a former_mother.

--Jeff Relf 17:29, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm just being particularly dense today but I still don't understand the relevance of your proposed addition. The paragraph in question currently reads:

According to Sherri Z. Heller, Ed.D, Commissioner of U.S. Office of Child Support Enforcement, the child support system collects "about 58% of current support due." The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 68% of child support cases had arrearages owed in 2003 (a figure up from 53% in 1999). Some believe that the process can never collect the full amount because a high proportion of obligors are unable to make the required payments. According to Ford Foundation Project Officer Ronald B. Mincy, between 16 percent and 33 percent of obligors are "turnip dads" (obligors earning less than $130 a week). According to one study (http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cse/new/csr9701.htm#9701c%7C) 38% of non-custodial parents not paying child-support said they lacked the money to pay.

I find the theme of the paragraph in the third sentence. To paraphrase, "A says the Bradley Amendment is good because so much child support is unpaid and A implies that it's unpaid by choice. B says that A's analysis is flawed because a big chunk can never be paid - a problem the Bradley Amendment does not and can not address." If HHS's statistic had included closed cases, are you arguing that the 68% statistic would be higher or lower? In that case, how would the theme of this paragraph be any different? Rossami (talk) 22:02, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Ok, I made it like this then:

The numbers above omit closed cases. Typically, cases are closed after four years of inactivity. Open or closed, past-due child support is still automatically a final judgement, thus non expiring and easy to collect.

--Jeff Relf 15:50, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Still under repeal effort?[edit]

Whats happened to the repeal effort since 2004? theres no current information? Or did it fail?

I'm guessing feminist groups are fighting hard behind the scenes to keep that from happening?216.52.163.1 19:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)LUID[reply]

Lack of Citations under "Controversies" heading.[edit]

The "Controversies" heading lists several "notorious" cases of unintended consequences to the law. If these cases are so "notorious," then why are no sources cited? Without specific sources, there's no way to tell if these examples are real or apocryphal. Captain Bathrobe (talk) 05:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's already cited in the section above. See the comments attributed to McLeod. Rossami (talk) 16:10, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some independent verification would be a good idea, don't you think? (Captain Bathrobe (talk) 00:18, 9 February 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Just reviewed McLeod's "testimony." He provides no evidence of these claims, names no names. Yet the existence of these cases is being cited as "notorious" cases of unintended consequences. In fact, McLeod isn't even saying that he has specific examples; he just make vague reference to "endless stories." If the story are endless, why can't he cite even one. I say, unless these cases can be substantiated, let's delete the "controversies" heading and keep McLeod's testimony as just that--his testimony. (Captain Bathrobe (talk) 00:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC))[reply]
When the content was added, it was attributed to his book (The Multiple Scandals of Child Support, I believe), not to his testimony. To be honest, I would not have expected anything qualifying as encyclopedic sourcing in congressional testimony - the session is just too time-limited. Any sources backing up the testimony would be in supplemental filings if the congressional audience allowed it at all. Rossami (talk) 02:15, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've done some work on this section and now all the examples should have several properly formatted citations. Wingman4l7 (talk) 01:31, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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