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’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.