Florida Gov. Scott vetoes bill that would end permanent alimony in state

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a bill late Wednesday that would have ended permanent alimony in Florida.

Scott vetoed the measure (SB 718) just four hours before the midnight deadline to approve or veto it. The bill automatically would have become law if Scott had done nothing by then.

If it had become law, Florida would have become the fifth state to abolish permanent alimony.

Read more: www.foxnews.com...
(I loathe using FOX News as a source, I feel they arent a real news network, just a feeding trough for brainwashed neocons )

Onto the article...

Why should people have permanent Alimony? I can understand a limited time frame, for a person to get back on their feet, but permanent alimony just stinks of milking someone who has worked hard to achieve their station in life for money that the other party doesn't deserve and hasn't earned.

Don't you think that after a period of time, the other person should have figured out how to live on their own? Or leeched onto another sucker so they can drain their bank account too?

But apparently Gov. Scott feels that freeloading gold diggers should get a permanent free ride through life. Nice setup if you can get it right? Just marry rich, stay in the sham of a marriage for 11 years and a day, skip out on the spouse with whatever suits your fancy and wala, set for life. Or, rinse and repeat if you break the bank on the old spouse.

I'm sure a couple of you will figure out how this is really Obama's fault.

"FOX News, they report, and make up your mind for you."

reply to post by HauntWok


I feel two ways about this.

Let's say two people get married. The woman (30 yo) is a successful CEO of an airline. The man (35 yo) works at the co-op. They want to have a family and they both decide that, since her income is much higher (by a factor of 75), they agree that he will quit his job and stay home and raise the kids and create an environment where the family is happy and healthy. For 20 years, he raises their 4 kids, one of them to college age, while she works her corporate job and provides the finances for the family. Now, after 20 years, they divorce.

What kind of job can this 55 yo man hope to get that will support himself and help support the kids who aren't yet 18? He has no retirement or social security - no means of income. He gets nothing for the dedication he has to his family... This doesn't seem fair to me.

Suffice it to say, a prenuptial agreement should be part of every marriage, sadly.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic




Oh course you would make the woman the bread winner in your story.

With 75% of marriages ending in divorce sooner or later....some very cogent consideration should be given to the whole concept of alimony.as well as community property, custody etc etc.....
There are far too many discrepancies currently to be fair or equal for either side of the coin.

Isnt the very concept horribly sexist and backwards?

Womens liberation only goes so far I guess.

Alimony? What is this, 1950?

reply to post by resoe26


Yes, I did. This is the 21st century and I didn't want to be sexist. Plenty of men get alimony. Did you have a response to the OP?

The "Manimony" Trend: Men Getting Alimony from Their Ex-Wives

“Gender roles in our society have largely converged, and the public strongly supports gender neutrality in matters of family court.”

In addition, a study put out by the AAML in 2010 showed that 52 percent of divorce attorneys cited an increase in women initiating the request for a prenuptial agreement. This number indicates that women may be increasingly more concerned about protecting their assets in the event of a divorce.

Goes on the same fact that we live in the year 2013, and food and housing materials have grown from the ground since the earth started housing life ( pun intended ) yet we have many even in our own country without both, let alone the world, and we still allow everyone to ignore it in some way or another.

Humans in order to survive as a species need not be selfish, we need to be helpful as a community of beings. Some how it will all be changed but if we do not try to fix it ourselves the change will not be one of want.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


whoa what!?
It's about time.

Woman always whine about equal rights. seems they got it now.
men can finally get custody of children easier.
and alimony?

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


I think you're example is purposefully opposite of the most common type of scenario in divorces, but it does happen so let's look at it. Let's assume that the primary care giver (the man in this case) is awarded custody of the minor children ( which is a big assumption given the courts preference to award custody to the mother in most cases regardless of circumstances). An airline CEO is going to be paying quite a bit in child support until the youngest is 18, and divorce settlements often include the parent paying child support to be wholly or in part responsible for the College costs of the children. During the divorce there will also be award of marital property to include homes, savings, joint IRAs, rental properties, and other assets considered joint property, maybe to even include pensions or retirement funds. I'm not 100% sure, but I think if a marriage lasts more than ten years, and the spouse is a "home maker" they are able to draw something from their spouses Social Security contributions. Taking all that into account how long should a spouse be able to be paid alimony? My thoughts are alimony is appropriate until either he has had time to learn a new skill and become self supporting (admittedly unlikely in this case unless the person is able to take assets awarded in the settlement and spin them into a small business) or until he is old enough to draw from retirement assets (59 1/2 for IRAs, 62 or 65 if eligible for SS, and somewhere between there for any pensions other retirement assets). So at most ten years in this case.

I'm not totally against alimony, but it should be awarded based on some pretty simple principles like: longevity of marriage, allocation of marital assets in divorce decree, fault in failure of marriage, ability of spouse receiving alimony to find a means to support themselves, and amount of child support. Time frames should be either retirement (for 50+ maybe as low as 45+ in current environment), re-marriage( so you fell in love with someone poorer than your ex-spouse, that ex shouldn't support you both), or a reasonable amount of time to learn new skills to become self sufficient (maybe as long as it takes to earn the skills that would get you to the potential earnings of the ex spouse (i.e. ex spouse was a Doctor, how many years it would take to earn a doctorate from current education level, ex spouse engineer and you got an associates, 4 or 5 years). I don't know that banning lifetime awards of alimony is the right answer though, and to be honest I don't know why I'm even talking about it as the issue exists primarily in a socioeconomic class more than a few rungs above me.In this world where the stay at home parent is much rarer than in the past, are there really that many people that still can honestly say they deserve it when the marriage dissolves.

I'll tell you how you get out of paying Alimony for life.............. Don't get married. For that matter, with the state of affairs with this country and the kangaroo court that is the American family court system, I would go so far as too say don't have any kids either.

That is assuming of course your a man. They will have you living out of a box or they will take your licenses or put you in debtors prison all the while they charge a ridiculous 9% interest on anything owed per year, force you to pay for all insurance costs, doctors bills, day care and anything else the mom and her state paid representation wants to run you up for.

This all leaves most men with no money to hire an attorney on their behalf and if your behind because the economy is in the toilet and they ring you up for contempt and you hire a lawyer to present your case, your automaticly guilty because you paid a lawyer lol.

The moms on the other hand reap the benefits of socialist policy and executive administration. Link card, reduced housing, tax credit, free health insurance and a whole bunch of other state aid. There are plenty of women who make a living by having kids and collecting child support and state benefits, plenty.

Don't get me wrong though, it's not the woman's fault, it's the systems. If women didn't know they would be handed the world by the state, maybe the divorce rate would go down, maybe taxes would too as we lost a good bulk of entitlement programs that are in place to reward people for destroying families. Regardless, if your a man and get married or have any kids, congratulations, you have just become a ward of the state entitled to indentured servitude till your wife dies or your kids turn 18 (Although you will still be paying off child support till your dead.)

Anywho, sorry, didn't mean to go off on a rant. Out of all the things to veto, I would sure like to know what this governor's line of thinking and justification for this is.

My opinion on this subject, is that there are circumstances where a spouse should receive some sort of spousal support. For a limited time. This should be used by the spouse to help while they train for a new career. It shouldn't be used as a paycheck.

Unfortunately this money is just used as a primary paycheck more often than not. Which doesn't do anyone any good. Why should the former spouse pay for the ex when the divorce happens. It's a dissolution of marriage after all. There shouldn't be any connection between the two parties after the divorce is final.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by HauntWok

 

I feel two ways about this.

Let's say two people get married. The woman (30 yo) is a successful CEO of an airline. The man (35 yo) works at the co-op. They want to have a family and they both decide that, since her income is much higher (by a factor of 75), they agree that he will quit his job and stay home and raise the kids and create an environment where the family is happy and healthy. For 20 years, he raises their 4 kids, one of them to college age, while she works her corporate job and provides the finances for the family. Now, after 20 years, they divorce.

What kind of job can this 55 yo man hope to get that will support himself and help support the kids who aren't yet 18? He has no retirement or social security - no means of income. He gets nothing for the dedication he has to his family... This doesn't seem fair to me.

Suffice it to say, a prenuptial agreement should be part of every marriage, sadly.

I see people like you described, every single day, get hired on at Casinos.

Weather they are cocktail servers, housekeepers, cooks, or they work the warehouse section. People, like the man in your scenario, get jobs every single day. Plus the pay is not that bad, they make over minimum wage. After 3-6 months on the job they get dental, medical and vision insurance as well as a 401k.

So I am sorry to say, people like the man in your scenario, can get fair paying jobs. They have to find them and go get them.

Alimony is insane. I can understand paying for a limited time to help with the adjustment, but at some point we are all responsible for ourselves.

Ok, here is the deal: most women marry for love. I know it is hard for you to believe but we do. The gold-digger population is so minute. Yes there are those very rich men with their trophy brides, and that is a very miniscule percentage of the population.

If a woman or a man for that matter sacrifices their own professional escalation for providing children with a grounded home, the spouse that made the sacrifice is entitled to compensation. For sure any assets accumulated during that period should be divided equally. Then support until they are able to bring themselves up to speed. Not forever. But until that person can provide for them self. Also, time is a factor here. Were they married for two years or fifteen. It is all variable. It must be taken on a case by case basis. But to just say a partner has no rights, is just sexist and wrong. Irrespective of which sex is making the claim.

Originally posted by HauntWok

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a bill late Wednesday that would have ended permanent alimony in Florida.

Scott vetoed the measure (SB 718) just four hours before the midnight deadline to approve or veto it. The bill automatically would have become law if Scott had done nothing by then.

If it had become law, Florida would have become the fifth state to abolish permanent alimony.

Read more: www.foxnews.com...
(I loathe using FOX News as a source, I feel they arent a real news network, just a feeding trough for brainwashed neocons )

Onto the article...

Why should people have permanent Alimony? I can understand a limited time frame, for a person to get back on their feet, but permanent alimony just stinks of milking someone who has worked hard to achieve their station in life for money that the other party doesn't deserve and hasn't earned.

Don't you think that after a period of time, the other person should have figured out how to live on their own? Or leeched onto another sucker so they can drain their bank account too?

But apparently Gov. Scott feels that freeloading gold diggers should get a permanent free ride through life. Nice setup if you can get it right? Just marry rich, stay in the sham of a marriage for 11 years and a day, skip out on the spouse with whatever suits your fancy and wala, set for life. Or, rinse and repeat if you break the bank on the old spouse.

I'm sure a couple of you will figure out how this is really Obama's fault.

"FOX News, they report, and make up your mind for you."

edit on 2-5-2013 by HauntWok because: (no reason given)

Actually, I don't know what to think of this. For years, alimony laws have been the bane of men, and many people throughout society declared alimony just and noble citing all kinds of reasons(such as sacrifice of career, time lost raising children etc). Now that the shoe is on the other foot, now that women are having to pay alimony, the same group that once saw fit to enshrine alimony laws in permanence are now seeking to get alimony outlawed.

Maybe gender equality is coming to Florida and state sponsored gynocentrism is coming to an end? One can dream I suppose.

Either way the entire argument against alimony is disingenuous as a good chunk of the people coming out of the wood work declaring alimony unjust are just sexist bigots who are upset that women have to pay men alimony. To have a discussion with any people with utter pathological narcissistic or self effacing behavior is a waste of time and no debate or discussion at all.