Past-due child support debt cannot be forgiven or discharged in bankruptcy. This policy is grounded in the assumption that all child support debt goes to a parent taking care of a child. However, billions of dollars of unpaid child support debt are instead owed to the government. Welfare debt often leads to a cycle of incarceration and criminal fines. This Article argues that for the bankruptcy system to uphold its normative principle of forgiving burdensome debt for the most economically vulnerable individuals, welfare debt must be forgiven.

Although the Bankruptcy Code is facially neutral, the consumer bankruptcy discharge provisions produce anomalies that run counter to bankruptcy’s internal principles of not forgiving debt that is based on misconduct or that implicates a public policy concern. For example, the discharge provisions allow some individuals to discharge debt that stems from civil rights violations or tortious discrimination. In contrast, the Bankruptcy Code precludes some debtors from debt relief based on narrow views of misconduct or misconceptions about moral hazards.