Company Store in the Market for Souls

[tmcg]

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.

Comments

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

With JD Hayworth as my representative (ex-sportscaster, regressive a$$hole) it would be even more futile. Being without health insurance as I am, though, it's even more worthwhile. Damn but this country is becoming unpleasant.

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

I trust Paul Krugman and MoveOn about as far as I can throw them, but this bill is also being opposed by libertarian bloggers. I can't think of anyone, on either side of the political spectrum, who is for it. It may exist soly because of insurance and credit card company campaign contributions.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

If I still lived in the US, I would probably be in full warrior mode, screaming "No prisoners! No prisoners!" while I advanced on the White House.

I did bankruptcy court back in the 90s. It is about the most heart-breaking place I've ever gone outside of a terminal ward or hospice...not because of my own situation but because of what I witnessed there with other people. My own situation was mild in comparison.

Bankruptcy court is no picnic. Your creditors all show up, either in person or via their lawyers, depending. They will try to persuade you to go with a payment plan, even reducing the amount you owe them drastically, rather than have to write off the entire amount. That wasn't so bad. The heartbreaker was watching young families with kids in strollers being stripped of everything they owned, including the car they had driven to court in. And then, to add insult to injury, being harrassed and cross-examined by the leg-breakers they owed money to, until the judge put a stop to it.

It's scary and public and humiliating, and it happens in front of a large audience, much like being arraigned after you are arrested and charged with a crime. There is nothing cushy about it. The people I saw were not living high and then writing it off. They had gone bankrupt because they had used their credit cards to charge groceries after losing their jobs, or to pay medical bills, or the rent, or all of the above and more.

I think the final humiliation, however, was having to walk past the luxurious courthouse office of Bob Dole on the way in and then on the way out again. Bankruptcy court was located right across the hall, which is perhaps the most pointed illustration of the state of the Union that I have ever seen.