THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary
                    (Hilton Head, South Carolina)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                  December 31, 1998

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

Since I became President, my Administration has waged an unprecedented campaign to make deadbeat parents pay the support their children need and deserve. Today, we have new evidence that our efforts are working: child support collections have gone up a record 80 percent since I took office, from $8 billion in 1992 to an estimated $14.4 billion in 1998. But we must do more to ensure that each and every parent honors his obligation to his children. That is why my new budget will propose new funds to help identify, investigate, and prosecute deadbeat parents. This effort will include new investigative teams in five regions of the country to identify, analyze, and investigate cases for criminal prosecution, and an eightfold increase in legal support personnel to help prosecute these new cases. With continued commitment and this new funding, we can do even more to support our nation's children.

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