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Just called my representative to urge him to vote against the bankruptcy bill. It may have been the most futile sixty seconds of my day, but also the most worthwhile.

In a Times article the MoveOn PAC links to in their action email, Paul Krugman said,

The bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies, and the industry's political muscle is the reason it seems unstoppable. But the bill also fits into the broader context of what Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, calls "risk privatization": a steady erosion of the protection the government provides against personal misfortune, even as ordinary families face ever-growing economic insecurity.

The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments.

The credit card companies say this is needed because people have been abusing the bankruptcy law, borrowing irresponsibly and walking away from debts. The facts say otherwise.

A vast majority of personal bankruptcies in the United States are the result of severe misfortune. One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies. The rest are overwhelmingly the result either of job loss or of divorce.

To the extent that there is significant abuse of the system, it's concentrated among the wealthy - including corporate executives found guilty of misleading investors - who can exploit loopholes in the law to protect their wealth, no matter how ill-gotten.

The MoveOn PAC also suggests "The Growing Threat to Middle-Class Families," by Harvard Law's Elizabeth Warren, and "Tom DeLay’s Bankruptcy Bill: House Majority Leader In Debt to Big Banks and Credit Card Industry," from the Public Campaign Action Fund.

Representatives' names and contact info can be gotten by Zip Code through Project Vote Smart.