Child support payments are often the only rope holding a child above the poverty line. Now imagine that the successful federal program binding that rope is cut — so severely that one Wisconsin community must resort to holding a raffle to fill the hole left in their budget.

The child support enforcement program collects outstanding payments and funds other activities aimed at getting child support to the families who need it. The cut left thousands of Wisconsin’s children, relying on child support payments for basic necessities, dangling by a thread.

Restoring these cuts is the right thing to do. It will help our state; it will help our counties. Most importantly, however, it will help hardworking, single-parent Wisconsin families.