A 2006 study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute entitled "Ten Thousand Commandments" found that the federal regulatory burden on U.S. businesses amounted to $1.13 trillion. This burden is killing American businesses, productivity, innovation, and jobs. So how much more when you add in STATE regulations?

Factor	Probability
US Average	0.0088300
US Male	0.0140000
Us Female	0.0128000
White Male	0.0139000
White Female	0.0127000
Black Male	0.0148000
Black Female	0.0132000
Married Male	0.0093000
Divorced Male	0.0187000
Married Female	0.0085000
Divorced Female	0.0170000
Heart Disease	0.0039000
Cancer	0.0019900
Suicide	0.0001230
Murder	0.0000900
Firearms	0.0001120
Accident	0.0003800
Auto Accident	0.0001760
Airline Accident	0.0000010
As One Year Old	0.0104000
1 Yr Old Male	0.0115000
1 Yr Old Female	0.0091000
Child Abuse	0.0000178
Child Abuse SMH	0.0000066
Child Abuse in SFH	0.0000004
Child Abuse in Families	0.0000003
Child Firearm Accident	0.0000016

Annual Probability of Death in the US

SMHs are 1.6 times more fatal to children than SFHs, 12 times more fatal than firearms, and 44 times more fatal than families.

Of 22.5 million children living in 18.8 SMHs, 422 are fatally abused each year--one death per 44,550 SMHs.
Of 2.1 million children living in 1.8 million SFHs, 25 are fatally abused each year--one death per 72,000 SFHs.
Of 37.6 million children living in 31.3 million families, 16 are fatally abused each year--1 death per 2 million families.
Of 70.1 million children living around 230 million firearms, 430 are killed by firearm accidents each year--1 death per 535,000 firearms.
Of 430 children killed by firearms, 322 are killed in SMHs.
Even if firearm ownership could be reduced by 90%, there would still be 23 million firearms in the US, which would not be much "safer" than 230 million.
Outlawing SMHs would reduce both fatal child abuse and accidental firearm deaths by 70%.

Source: Donna Shalala, "National Child Abuse Prevention Month" and "Child Maltreatment 1994: Reports from the States to the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect". Patrick Fagan, Heritage Foundation, "THE CHILD ABUSE CRISIS: THE DISINTEGRATION OF MARRIAGE, FAMILY, AND THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY", Rick Thoma, "The Dirty Little Secret: Abuse in Foster Care"

According to a 1994 analysis done for TIME Magazine by the Child Welfare League of America, the annual welfare cost of one child living with his or her mother is $2,644, while the average cost for the child's care in residential group care is $36,500. -"The Storm Over Orphanages," TIME Magazine, 144 (December 12, 1994)

New 2-11-04 Pharmaceuticals are America’s most profitable industry, with $37 billion earnings in 2002. Yet drug makers pay only 16 percent average taxes, compared to 27 percent for all industries. They pump $150 million a year into wooing politicians, to protect their gold mine. They spend gigantic sums wooing doctors to prescribe their products. Manufacturers sell drugs to the U.S. government for only about half as much as they charge average Americans. For the Veterans Administration, the price is a mere one-fortieth of the public price. ~From Charleston WV Gazette 2-11-04 Editorial

11-29-2003- About a quarter of the people raised in foster care will be homeless within four years of leaving the system, said Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

There are more than half a million children and youth in the U.S. foster care system today. Studies reveal that children are 11 times more likely to be abused in state care than they are in their own homes, and 7 times more likely to die as a result of abuse in the foster care system. -John Walsh Show 4-16-2003

New! The "cost" to Americans for the corrupt legal system- $300 Billion

Federal audits of state CPS agencies done summer '02

Federal law requires that states make diligent efforts to place children with relatives or loose federal funding. However, ongoing USDHHS audits have disclosed that 13 of those state child protective agencies examined failed to comply with this requirement.

Did you know that in 1999, 83.7% of the 1,972 children exiting foster care in Nebraska were reported to the federal government as "missing"?

"According to Statistics Canada, 56,790 grandchildren across the country were living with grandparents without a parent involved in 2001. ... many grandparents feel isolated in their new child-rearing roles."

Founder: Stoneman Party of Canada www.thestoneman.org David Smith, 6 - 6056 Maple Drive, Lacombe, Alberta, T4L 1Y5, Canada, Telephone: 403.782.9255, E-mail: alpha007@oanet.com

Year 2000 statistics

In the year 2000 about 3 million American families (5 million kids) were referred to child protection agencies. Less than 2 million of those referrals resulted in investigations. Findings of abuse/neglect were made on about 1/2 million of those families (879,000 kids). In other words, while 879,000 kids were found to be in need of services, about 4 million kids had to endure strip searches, interrogations and home inspections for nothing.

Of the 879,000 found to be allegedly maltreated, 568,000 were in foster care. What happened to family preservation? This is why ALL the states are completely OUT OF COMPLIANCE with ASFA 97 because they aren't even PRETENDING to reunify families once they have torn them up.

Type of Foster Care Placements
Source: http://www.childrensrights.org

In Interim FY 2000:

47% lived with foster families who are not related to them
25% lived with relatives who are their foster parents
4% lived in pre-adoptive homes
8% lived in group homes
10% lived in institutions
1% were in supervised independent living arrangements
approximately 2% were runaways
3% were on trial visits home with their parents

The picture may be improving, however, ASFA (1997) recognized the importance
of kinship care, not *stranger care.* (actually not improving at all)

When the government spends $16 billion a year on the drug war, and when more than half those in jail are nonviolent drug offenders, isn't it time we connected the dots between prescription drugs and street drugs? How many more prisons do we have to build to jail offenders whom, earlier in life, we had drugged with abandon?
Follow-up Study
Methylphenidate (MHP) commonly known as Ritalin excerpts from DEA Press Release, October 20, 1995, "Methylphenidate"

...."Abuse of MPH can lead to marked tolerance and severe psychic dependence...."

...."Students are giving and selling their medication to classmates who are crushing and snorting the powder like cocaine. In March of 1995, two deaths in Mississippi and Virginia were associated with this activity...."

...."The U.S. manufactures and consumes 5-times more MPH than the rest of the world combined.....

...."MPH aggregate production quota has increased almost 6-fold since 1990...."

...."Every indicator available, including scientific abuse liability studies, actual abuse, paucity of scientific studies on possible adverse effects associated with long-term use of stimulants, divergent prescribing practices of U.S. physicians, and lack of concurrent medical treatment and follow-up, urge greater caution and more restrictive use of MPH...."

http://www.teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/frontpage.html

Over Diagnosis of ADHD
http://www.students.stedwards.edu/~sgottne/summ5.htm

http://www.caer.com/drugs.htm

http://www.aafp.org/fpr/20000500/05.html

http://childrentoday.com/resources/articles/ritalinp2.htm

http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2002/mar02/ritalin.shtml

What percentage of Abuse Reports are False?

NCCAN is the National Clearninghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect
http://www.calib.com/nccanch/

The Child Maltreatment 1998 report is at
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/cm98/

Pharmaceutical Facts

"In any case, a statistic has been planted, and makes its appearances in tables, graphs, learned discourses, becoming part of the world's wisdom. In the beginning was the Lie, and the Lie was made news and dwelt among us, graceless and false." --Malcolm Muggeridge

According to Larry Klaymam, General Counsel of Judicial Watch, the "litigation tax" is 2.5% on every product purchased. The tort system itself costs every individual $1,200.00 annually. This tax adds $500.00 for every new car bought, increases vaccine costs by twenty times, and inflates the price of a pacemaker by $3,000.00. Lawsuits caused 36% of corporations to discontinue products,15% to lay off workers, and 8% to close plants. 1.75 million people have lost manufacturing jobs in the last two years.

In twenty years, the number of U.S. manufacturers shrank by over half because of excessive, lottery-styled litigation. Is it any wonder why the executive branch cannot respond adequately to biological warfare threats?

The cost of the legal system is growing four times the rate of the economy. Worse still is the fear litigation creates and the damage this causes are much higher.

Overheard and Unverified-

The annual take of lawyers on US Divorce, Custody, and Child Welfare cases- $96 BILLION

15% of the population has intelligence levels that are pretty low!

The annual cost of REGULATION to the US National Economy- $843 BILLION
From- http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0122/p21s01-wmcr.html

For this year, the administrative costs of federal regulations amount to $20.3 billion, according to Melinda Warren, a budget analyst at Washington University in St. Louis.

It's "small" as a percentage of the $2 trillion total federal budget, notes Ms. Warren. But she expects it to grow. The Federal Aviation Administration's budget, for one, will certainly increase to address new domestic security concerns after Sept. 11.

Compliance to regulation is a far bigger, direct cost to business and consumers. It came to $843 billion in 2000, reckons Thomas Hopkins, dean of the Rochester Institute of Technology's business school.

That's 8 percent of gross domestic product, the nation's output of goods and services.

JUST FOR REGULATION!

Since the late 1970s America's incarceration rate has increased six-fold. Today, America has, by far, the highest incarceration rate in the developed world.

Where do child abuse reports come from?

Professional Sources
Education Personnel, 15.0%
Legal, Law Enforcement, Criminal Justice Personnel, 13.6%
Social Services Personnel, 13.2%
Medical Personnel, 8.5%
Mental Health Personnel, 2.5%
Child Day Care Providers 1.1%
Substitute Care Providers, 0.8%

Non-Professional Sources
Anonymous or Unknown Reporters, 12.2%
Other Relatives, 9.8%
Other, 8.5%
Friends and Neighbors, 7.2%
Parents, 6.5%
Alleged Victims, 0.9%
Alleged Perpetrators, 0.2%

Source: Federal Statistics: "Child Maltreatment, 1999"

Teachers WRONG 5 out of 6 times.

Teachers in South Carolina report child abuse wrongly 5 out of 6 times. They might as well be playing Russian roulette with the families they report. One would think that professional educators would be able to spot child abuse better than most people, but in South Carolina, that is not the case. One would certainly think that they were better trained at it. Teachers make more reports of child abuse than any other reporting group SCDSS tracks, but they have a terrible record when it comes to the reliability of the reports they make. For professionals who work with children on a day to day basis, this is a pretty shameful record. Either they are very badly informed about how to detect child abuse, or they are just damned sloppy, or they are using child abuse reports as means of hurting parents they don't like. Or all three..... (Educators) were the largest single source of "referrals" in 1997. Same for 1996, too. Teachers submitted twice as many reports (19.6%) as "friends/neighbors" (9.1%) in 1997. Teachers submitted twice as many reports (19.6%) as "other relatives" (9.5%) in 1997. Add the "friends/neighbors" and the "other relatives" together, and the teachers are still submitting more reports. Teachers submitted more 20% more reports (19.6%) as "medical" (16.2%) in 1997. Teachers were more accurate in making reports (16.4%) than "friends/neighbors" (13.9%) in 1997. Basically, the teacher's idea of what constitutes child abuse is only a little better than the idea of the guy next door. And these are people that deal with kids professionally?! Teachers were less accurate in making reports (16.4%) "other relatives" (16.7%) in 1997. The professional educator's understanding of child abuse is not even as good as that of the average family member. Teachers are way less accurate in making reports (16.4%) than "medical" (23%) in 1997. But look what that not only says about teachers, but also medical professionals! Basically 3 out of 4 times a medical professional suspects child abuse strongly enough to report it, they are wrong!!! Either the medical professionals really have no comprehension of what they are reporting, or they are doing it negligently. The teachers' accuracy rate was roughly the same in both years: out of twelve categories of referrers, they were in the bottom half in accuracy in both years. Now, maybe if someone (SCDSS? HA?) could educate the teachers better about what IS child abuse and neglect, there would be a whole bunch of families that wouldn't have to go through a CPS investigation needlessly. Roughly 3,300 reports out of 20,000 reports investigated by SCDSS in 1997 were false reports made by teachers. That's pretty sad. Not only does it waste resources, but it also puts families through hell needlessly. Eric von Kleist Spartanburg, South Carolina