Protecting Marriage, Inc.
Wilmington, Delaware 19803
July 5, 2001

Hon. Wally Herger, R-CA
House Ways and Means Committee
Subcommittee on Human Resources
Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20015

Dear Rep. Herger:

This letter is supplemental testimony to your June 28th hearing on the Child Support bill, H.R. 1488. I called the subcommittee today and received instructions on how to submit from a Macintosh computer and was instructed to email my information as an attachment to Ms. Kitchin. We were also paying attention to your hearing on May 22nd as I am well known to many witnesses - Wade Horn, Robert Rector, Mike McManus - on the divorce issue. However, because we expose significant academic research data that confronts some of what you have heard, I, personally, am unfortunately quite controversial. For quick reference, I am in the Heritage Foundation’s Directory of Public Policy Experts. You also could confer with law professor Katherine Spaht, the author of Louisiana’s Covenant Marriage law, who supports what I reveal on this issue.

In 1996, I received a call from a reporter in Bowling Green, OH who informed me that we should be paying attention to the Welfare Reform bill, and I asked why. Because, she said, in it was funding to "non-custodial parents" which we know is code for ‘Fathers’, and the fact brought forth continually in all research studies is that it is Mothers or Wives who end up losing disproportionate financial benefits after divorce and are recipients of most family responsibilities. The fact is that every year in the United States (see the Census or American Demographics) among unmarried men [never married, widowed, or divorced] the group with the highest median income is divorced men/fathers. As a United Nations report of three years ago stated, "there is no country in the world that treats its women as well as its men." Wives and mothers in an unaddressed divorce which they cannot by law defend against, are a Human Resource, Congressman Herger, and this committee must fairly address that issue.

Your staff needs to obtain the 1994 Journal of Socio-Economics and go to the study titled "Crime and Unemployment" where a stunning and unanticipated finding emerged in a 44 year tabulation of all U.S. county data: "the most powerful predictor of Homicide rates in the United States are the divorce rates." The Drexel University researchers used the top rated variables (women inthe workforce, percentage of Roman Catholic families, etc.) and the coefficients are huge in the results. When I pointed out to Wade Horn that this finding was not showing that Fatherlessness, per se, is prompting the homicide increase, but rather that high divorce occurrences were, he was displeased. And to be divorced, one must first be married. In order for marriage again to be attractive to both men and women, then the exigencies, and unbalanced ordered losses, from mandatory no-fault divorce law need be changed. Professor Spaht is on record as stating that we are not going to succeed with requiring marriage prep courses or marriage mentoring until this country corrects our disastrous divorce statutes, too. She feels that after 30 years of failing to change state divorce laws due to the power of special interests of lawyers and therapists, in particular, to stop such correction, we shall have to address exposing that problem. In 1997, we submitted a bill proposal to Senator Sessions when his committee was working on the Youth Violence bill (S 10) which never passed. Robert Rector asked me for a copy of the Drexel study two years ago. When an educational organization like Protecting Marriage, Inc. and its leaders

are showing hard data that may slow the flow of federal funds to the wrong entities, these policy analysts are quite unpopular and too often dismissed or libeled. We urge your Subcommittee to take a look again at where you may direct support; the fate of America’s children cannot continually be misused as it has been since 1970. can it? We all are sincerely active in wanting to end the destruction of children’s futures; and every married Mother promotes her husband as a firm and loving Father to their children.

There is one last point that we must address. There is much research that shows that mandated joint physical custody does not produce optimal results for children. Despite political pressure, it is a fact and not a surprising one. Stability for anyone rests on being securely in one place and with a parent who does not be-tray.....either parent of either gender, who does not betray the marriage and family, but visitation of one’s children should be assured in our laws. To declare that TANF funds be spent on "strengthening marriage" when top studies (USC in 1998 and Univ. of OK in 1995) show that no-fault divorce laws independent of other factors were the cause of our divorces exploding in number, then your subcommittee should shift its focus slightly from marriage prep to genuine marriage preservation by offering rewards for enacting divorce statute disincentives. Email to our office tells that Congress wants solutions and we have endeavored to provide some in this testimony. We are at your service ,via frequent trips to Washington, and providing studies identified here. Your personal profile on marriage and family is enviable and that leadership focus is important, Representative Herger.

Very sincerely,

Phyllis H. Witcher
President