America’s foster care system is facing a serious crisis, and the government has not only been making it worse — but stealing from orphans who need help the most.
It’s called the “orphan tax,” and Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Alex Adams has been dedicated to exposing it.
“Essentially, a child’s parents died, that child’s parents had worked, so they were entitled to some social security through earned benefits through work,” Adams tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck.
“Traditionally the child would be eligible for the survivor’s benefit, but in 29 states, when that child entered foster care, the state was saying ‘we are now the parent of that child. We’re going to take that survivor’s benefit from them,’” he explains.
“These states were essentially stealing from orphans and using it to cover government bureaucratic overhead. So we sent a letter to 29 states asking them to end that practice, which I find morally objectionable, and luckily 10 states changed the laws this year,” he adds.
Of those 10 states, the governors of Nebraska, Louisiana, and Indiana signed executive orders immediately ending the practice.
“We still have a long way to go, and we’re going to continue pushing on states to try to end the orphan taxation,” Adams says.
Glenn worries that this can be reversed under new leadership, so the thing to do is “encourage our houses of worship to get more involved.”
“One of my big phrases that I use at my charity is if we want the government to do less then we have to do more. If we want our government to not be involved on all of these levels because they usually will screw things up, we need to have our churches do more,” Glenn tells Adams.
“I agree with you wholeheartedly,” Adams says. “The message that we send to the faith-based community will make or break our success in child welfare long-term.”
“And families of faith are the most likely to raise their hands and volunteer and run towards the foster care system, get licensed as foster families, provide preventative services that will prevent kids from entering into foster care in the first place,” he adds.
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Glenn beck, Alex adams, Nebraska, Louisiana, Orphan tax, Indiana, Foster care, The glenn beck program
