12th item promised in the Republican Contract with America

The 12th item promised in the Republican Contract with America

"The Family Enforcement Act: Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption, strengthening rights for parents in their children's education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of families in American society."

This is another large and complicated promise. We will dig through it one portion at a time.

1. Child Support enforcement was promised. First of all I do not think The Federal Government should be very involved in collecting Child Support, it should be up to the fifty States. The only way to determine if the Republicans succeeded on this is to look at governmental statistics. In 1995 the government collected 70% of all Child Support payments that were due. In 2004 the government collected about 78% of all Child Support payments that were due. In 2004 the government spent 5 Billion dollars to collect 22 Billion Dollars of Child Support payments. A total of 28 Billion dollars of current payments were due. Based on this information I have to conclude that some progress has been made on collecting Child Support payments since 1995.

2. Tax incentives for adoption were promised. This was promised and delivered. In 1996 an adoption tax credit of $5000 was passed. Today, depending on your income and how much you spend on adoption, you may qualify for a tax credit of up to $10,390. The Republicans certainly delivered on this promise!

3. The Republicans promised to strengthen the rights of parents in their children's education. This was a broken promise for sure. The public school system is a protected monolpoly. The public school system is broken, we need to fix it. The Republicans have not made a real effort to strengthen the rights of parents.

4. The Republicans promised stronger child pornogrpahy laws. The Republcians passed stronger Child Pornography laws. Due to the rise of the internet Child Pornography is a much larger problem today then it was in 1994. I do not think we can hold that against the Republicans. As far as I am concerned they fulfilled this promise.

5. The Republicans promised to create an elderly dependent care tax credit. They came through on this promise.

As far as I am concerned, The Republicans fulfilled 4 of 5 portions of this promise; so I will give them credit for fulfilling this promise!

Score of Republican Promises:
Promises Broken 8
Promises Kept 4