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Indiana Civil Rights Council wants to outlaw sole child custody

We need new legislation outlawing the awarding of sole child custody, which is mostly to women, except in cases of abuse and/or neglect, and, instead, enact legislation for joint child custody and the elimination of child support, mandating that each parent take care of their own financial needs when the child is with him or her. The family-friendly legislation, combined with serious welfare reform, will turn the state budget around, so that all other desperately-needed services will have funding again. Indiana currently spends about 40% of its entire annual budget a whopping FOUR BILLION DOLLARS every year - on welfare hand-outs to continually do little more than "band-aid" the myriad of devastation that still echoes from the fallout of sole-custody divorce, long after the dust settles upon a court's closed files.

While a portion of welfare money is honestly spent on the true needs, the majority can be phase-transferred into sorely-needed funding for such things as: education, including teacher salaries, and increasing the number of teachers; health care, including family-friendly partnerships with medical service providers, and increased support for the elderly; public safety, by increasing the visibility, strength, and tools of firefighters, police, and emergency technicains; public transportation, including development and expansion of rail and monorail systems, in combination with any restructuring of busing - even adding popular city-city and suburban routes; fighting drug abuse more efficiently, with better technology and more personnel; and creation of new jobs, because of all of the above, and other incentives.

In fact, there can easily be enough savings realized by serious welfare reform to invest in all of the above, in other programs, and to LOWER TAXES in various ways - like property and income taxes, for example, and providing NEW TAX CREDITS that are designed to promote and maintain stable, healthy families - the backbone of any SUCCESSFUL ECONOMY. One quick look at our Indiana budget reveals the simple truth: if we reform welfare a mere 25%, we've already permanently fixed our approximate $1 Billion deficit - without having to touch anything else. And, any reform we achieve past that (which should not be too difficult) is literally "money in the bank" to be put to profitable use.