Charge the Senate
Charge the Senate
This week the credit card industry — which raked in $30 billion in profits last year — storms the Congress in an attempt to squeeze a few more dimes from Americans who are sick or out of work. Starting today the Senate will consider a bill (S. 256) that would amend bankruptcy law to “make it harder for families struck by financial misfortune to get back on track.” (Nine out of 10 bankruptcies “are triggered by the loss of a job, high medical bills or divorce.) The bill is supported in Congress by a bipartisan coalition on the credit industry dole. They think they can pass the bill without the American people noticing. Prove them wrong. Write your senators and tell them to reject the legislation in its current form.
The bill on the Senate floor right now doesn’t stop some of the worst abuses of our bankruptcy system. In several states — including the president’s home in Texas — a multimillionaire buisnessman can declare bankruptcy, avoid his debts, and still keep his palatial estate. Some examples:
Marvin Warner, a former ambassador to Switzerland and the owner of a failed Ohio Savings & Loan, who paid off only a fraction of $300 million in bankruptcy claims while keeping his multi-million-dollar horse ranch near Ocala, Florida.
Dallas developer, Talmadge Wayne Tinsley, who filed under chapter 7 after incurring $60 million in debts. Tinsley objected to the Texas law that permitted him to keep only one acre of his $3.5 million, 3.1-acre magnolia-lined estate. But that acre included a five-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bath mansion with two studies, a pool and a guest house.
The 2001 bankruptcy bill at least stopped these abuses by capping the so-called “homestead exemption” at $125,000. This bill has a complicated exemption that will allow “wealthy debtors who are sophisticated enough to plan ahead — and those are, after all, the people we are talking about — can purchase a homestead to shelter their non-exempt assets and simply wait [49 months] before filing their petition.”
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I pray for the day where we can come up with a system where members of Congress can’t be bought and sold. It’s depressing when even members on our side sell out.
February 28th, 2005 at 11:41 amIs there no Republician with a heart, are they all just a bunch of cold hearted men and women who cares only about the big businesses and their self intrest?
February 28th, 2005 at 11:57 amI will close all credit card accounts except the one from a credit union. This is outright thievery & I refuse to be taken by the banks. I will also withdraw the savings I have in the one bank in which I have deposited funds.
February 28th, 2005 at 12:21 pmThis effort to continue to weaken the rights of poor people to survive is no less than a full frontal attack in the class warfare against the middle class, poor, and homeless in America. The current crop of Washington occupiers apparently live in a different world from those of us who struggle to care for our families. The credit companies are literally a bunch of thieves who have managed to keep their banditry legal Is it going to take an armed revolution to take Washington back for the American people, or can people be awakened enought to go it with the ballot box? Right now the American dream is rapidly going down the tube, speeded along its way by unbridled, uncontrolled, heartless capitalism with no end in sight, and the people are still largely ignorant that they are indeed in the middle of class warfare without a shot being fired while their attention is deliberately being diverted to non-issue matters of religion and bigotry. Our side is losing by default.
February 28th, 2005 at 1:12 pmThis is the most ill conceived piece of legislation I have ever seen. Sen. Grassley is completely out of touch with those people in this country who are bearing the brunt of lost jobs, escalating medical costs and divorce. This bill pretty much absolves the credit card companies of any responsibility for their unconscionable extensions of credit.
February 28th, 2005 at 1:32 pmY’know you have to wonder if the credit card people ever read the story of the goose that laid the golden egg when they were childeren. Or if they were ever childeren at all. . . It seems as though the current Congress will pass anything as longer as they are exempt. Oddly I haven’t seen one bill that docked a Congressman.
February 28th, 2005 at 1:46 pmThe bill only gets worse the more you read. My favorite example of hypocrisy and mendacity is the “means test.”
Currently, bankruptcy judges have discretion in restructuring filers debts and repayment plans according to their current income and assets. Under the new law, judges will instead have to impose a means test. The means test, in essence, assumes that all filers are making, at the moment of filing, the average of their income over the last six months. So, even if you are currently unemployed and bankrupt because of a heart attack, you will be required to pay back as much debt as if you were making what you made, on average, over the last six months.
For those of you interested in reading real stories from real people who would be hurt by this law, check out getsickgobroke.org.
February 28th, 2005 at 4:04 pmI heard a bit of the testimony given to the Senate committee regarding this proposed bill. Senator Biden is for the bill, of course, representing the big corporations that find Delaware such a grand state to say they are incorporated in. One of those testifying against the bill was a professor who said that the rate of interest charged by the credit card companies was so usurous that people could not get out from under the debt without the use of personal bankruptcy. Biden responded to her testimony by saying that usury was a separate issue that should be addressed by separate legislation. She replied that what worried her was the passage of a bill that would deny people the limited relief of personal bankruptcy while including no language to address usurous rates of interest. Biden said, “Oh, now I see where you’re coming from. You’re good, professor, very good” and he was being derogatory, rather like his “that’s above your pay grade, Scotty boy” moment.
I can’t help thinking that all the blather about how Dems need to appeal to this or that ‘value’ or population is really just self-deluding claptrap — if the leadership really meant any of that, Biden wouldn’t be able to act like this, over and over again.
February 28th, 2005 at 5:49 pmHey Folks, those who make the laws determine what’s legal. Surely you have noticed how your rights are being chipped away. And the worst part is this: with rigged elections we can’t even replace these buzzards.
February 28th, 2005 at 6:51 pmThis is one more example of a congress that has no concern for average Americans. This is a clear indication why the 2006 congressional races are so important. We need to begin to think about that now.
February 28th, 2005 at 8:23 pmNothing in this country suprises me anymore. I’m waiting for additional details, like the government will open up debtors prisons for those that fail the means test and still cannot pay off their creditors.
I know an overwhelming number of Republican Senators will vote for this bill. I feel that the real test is in the number of Democratic Senators that vote for this tripe. If a majority of Democats vote in the affirmative, I believe it will be time to mobilize the troops, and refuse to vote in any upcoming election. Basically let the current form of Democratic party whither and die since they will have shown once and for all that they no longer stand for the common american.
March 1st, 2005 at 10:38 amI don’t think you should ever be able to just wipe out credit card debt. When hardships happen you should be able to delay collection or reduce the interest rate but a free pass is unthinkable to me.
March 1st, 2005 at 1:28 pmIn one day this week I trashed 4 credit card applications for myself, and 2 for my sons who have already gotten themselves in credit card hell at the age of 22 & 25. These applications promised “easy credit” “up to $10,000 credit line” etc. The fine print was $59 annual membership, 2 day grace period then you are overlimit, charged for overlimit, increase in interest rate from introductory rate of 7% to 29%!, and on and on. It’s no wonder easy credit causes bankruptcy. The theives are lending the money.
March 1st, 2005 at 7:30 pmAgain, I say its time to put the lier on the street with all of his pals these thiefs need to go to jail.
March 2nd, 2005 at 11:14 am[...] Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes about how the U.S. Senate is on the verge of passing a credit-card-industry-backed bankruptcy bill that makes it harder for consumers to pay back their debts, and turns a blind eye to predatory lending practices. He notes that Senators are expected to cynically use values language to justify their support of this bill. (For more on the bill, see this earlier ThinkProgress post). [...]
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