Collecting from deadbeat parents

It's become a panacea for government bad management.

Can't hold down spending? Start a state lottery to pay for it. Sales taxes are lagging? Open the area to casinos.

Now comes perhaps the worst idea. Can't get deadbeat parents to pay their child support? Have the casinos collect it.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson says the Bush administration's budget for 2004 includes $700 million raised by pursuing child-support debts through gambling winnings.

Any time someone wins $5,000 or more, casinos, horse tracks, keno parlors, jai alai arenas and off-track betting parlors would be expected to check a computer database of deadbeat parents, according to the proposal.

Child advocates like the idea, and why not? "It's such a pervasive problem that any tool to help custodial parents is one that should be considered," said Gary Katz, president of Child Support Network.

Any tool?

First, there is the impracticality of the idea. As we've seen in recent reports, state governments can't even do a good job of keeping track of felony sex offenders.

If they can't keep track of deadbeat parents now, what makes them think they can establish a database linked to every spot in the nation where a bet is made. Imagine, just in Carson City, that every bar, every grocery store, every convenience store that has slot machines would need a computer terminal linked to the Federal Parent Locator Service.

Then, say you hit a $5,000 jackpot at the neighborhood slot parlor. Your name comes up on the database. You claim that's somebody else. The feds expect the cage teller to make that determination?

We're all in favor of collecting the child support owed by deadbeat parents. State governments should allocate the resources to district attorneys to pursue such cases, not try to find shortcuts that depend on private businesses to be their debt collectors.