Equity in the Law and Government Oversight of Waste Management

This is an 2-part article written in preparation for the upcoming legislative session for Utah. As an FYI: Since I chair the Legislative/ Mobilization Committee for the Utah Federation of Republican Women (UFRW), this particular blog post is written from that perspective. Responsible participation through this blog or on Facebook under the Group, "Friends of the Utah Federation of Republican Women" is invited.

Equity in the Law and
Government Oversight of Waste Management

Part One: Equity in the Law

First, let me lay a foundation by saying that the UFRW lobbies on behalf of its members across all areas of legislation. But we are particularly interested in family welfare, human dignity, etc. Broad in scope these can entail about any kind of legislation if one really wanted to push it. Now looking at the title for this blog entry, one would truly wonder exactly how "equity in the law" and "waste management" could be tied together. If anyone knows about the one, they are not likely to know about the other, as they are about as opposite as two topics could be. Or so it would seem.

For now, let's consider the welfare of those effected by split families for a minute. In law, there is the theory called "equity in the law", meaning that whenever two parties (or more) are involved in an action where the welfare of all need to be considered, those needs are balanced against the availability to provide for them, not the number of available resources to the number of those parties. In other words, what is fair is not split down the middle, but is split according to need. In family law, the party with the most pressing need and the smallest available resources to offset those needs gets the lion's share of combined assets. Catch my drift?

So child support, meant to provide for the least likely able to provide for themselves is calculated by a formula. This formula, if you are not familiar with it, (and pardon this dialog if you are), adds both rational incomes of the parties, and then divides the larger into the smaller to get the percentage of one most liable for expending resources. This is fair and balanced according to the law of equity. But in Utah medical expenses--also a type of child support, obviously--is split ignoring the law of equity, right down the middle--using a completely different rule--that of number of resources to number of parties. This is nonsense. It is a simple breach of the algebraic equation: What you do to one side, you must do to the other side. Otherwise you mess up you outcome and your equation doesn't make any sense! And clearly this doesn't.

What this does is force the person with the least resources, usually the one with custody, and the woman, (but not always) to either ignore medical needs until they become critical, or ignore them altogether, or to go on chips. Now, when the other person's income has already been proven to be able to bear the burden of responsibility, why would we allow the state to become the bearer of responsibility? This becomes just another waste of public assets!

Other states use the correct formula consistently across the full measure of child support--both the financial contributions and medical/in kind contributions. What is the matter with Utah? This should be fixed a.s.a.p. So then why isn't it?

Part Two will discuss the reason why.