A new law in Texas requires convicted drunk drivers to pay child support if they kill a child’s parent or guardian, according to House Bill 393.
The law, which went into effect Friday, says those convicted of intoxication manslaughter must pay restitution. The offender will be expected to make those payments until the child is 18 or until the child graduates from high school, “whichever is later,” the legislation says.
Intoxication manslaughter is defined by state law as a person operating “a motor vehicle in a public place, operates an aircraft, a watercraft, or an amusement ride, or assembles a mobile amusement ride; and is intoxicated and by reason of that intoxication causes the death of another by accident or mistake.”
I’ll always be in favor of heavily penalizing drunk driving and improving enforcement to dissuade people from drunk driving.
That said, it would be nice if we could take a page out of the books of other countries where children and parents don’t have to rely on child support to ensure children get the means necessary to survive.
The current system furthers this game of hot potato which leads to children having a poor relationship with one of their parents and growing up in poverty, all in the name “personal responsibility” and “muh tax payer moneys” while children end up being collateral damage.
We have WIC, food stamps, free school lunches in most areas based on income, and section 8. It isn’t like there is nothing. It might not be enough, and I agree it probably isn’t, but it isn’t some Dickinsonian nightmare.
Ah yes, the programs that are so broken that they mainly serve as a cudgel against any form of criticism, rather than actually effectively lift people out of poverty.
Not to mention that politicians won’t let any opportunity go to waste to try and break down those programs further.
Don’t take my word for it, look at the child poverty ranking amongst the 34 OECD countries where the US is placed 31st, with 1 of every 5 kids you see growing up in poverty.
Meanwhile many other countries just plainly periodically give parents a bag of money in the form of child allowance, eliminating the need for free school lunches and teachers burning their meager paychecks on classroom essentials.
The closest thing that comes to this is the Child Tax Credit, still meager in comparison, but nevertheless eroded to a joke because we “care so much for the children”.
To call it a Dickinsonian nightmare might go a bit far, then again, you dragged that straw man in here, but the fact that child labor is back on the rise in the US suggests that those times are far from behind us.
i take it you haven’t been truly poor for any significant period of time.
Was homeless twice and my parents were failures at everything except making more kids. I have also been to the developing world quite a few times.
Whatever just keep making this about me, that seems like the way you want to go about this.
i just made the one comment - saying it’s not a Dickensian nightmare seemed not to demonstrate an understanding of what some folks are dealing with - not having a home, enough to eat, basic medical care, safety.
i’m surprised, given your own experiences, that you seemed to imply what others are going through in the face of insufficient resources is not, after all, that bad.
Most areas? Try 8 states.
https://apnews.com/article/free-school-meals-0c927f491b2ee9d4ce7e04b44da79e51