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"Additionally, this bill would make it impossible for families who've been
dealt a bad hand to get a clean start. Instead, the bill actually gives
credit-card companies new ways to seize our homes and cars if we get into financial
trouble, and makes it much more difficult for middle-class people to qualify for
a debt-liquidating personal bankruptcy."
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Last Chance: House Will Vote On Unjust Bankruptcy Bill This
Thursday
Posted April 12, 2005 thepeoplesvoice.org
By: Evan Augustine Peterson lll, J.D.
After a decade-long multimillion dollar lobbying effort by credit-card
companies, the U.S. House of Representatives will consider implementing sweeping
changes in bankruptcy law this Thursday, when it votes on the grossly-unfair
"Debt Slavery" Bankruptcy Bill (H.R. 685). This bill contains 500 pages of
complicated legalese written by credit-card companies that made profits of $30
billion in 2004, but are blinded by greed.
The Senate passed the same bill in March (S. 256). Nevertheless, we can
defeat its advance in the House IF we contact our U.S. Representatives IMMEDIATELY.
Please call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 TODAY, between 9:00 AM
and 5:00 PM EST, and ask to speak with your Representative. If you can't recall
your Representative's name, just give them your zipcode, and the Switchboard
will connect you. And if you really like lobbying, please call once more on Thursday morning! [1]
What should you say to your U.S. Representative (it's likely that you'll end
up speaking with a staff member)? Tell them that you're a constituent who
wants "Representative (his/her last name) to vote AGAINST the bankruptcy bill."
Moreover, "please persuade your House colleagues to vote AGAINST this terrible
bill." Furthermore, "every Congressperson who sides with the credit-card
companies against America's families by voting for this bill will experience
NEGATIVE political consequences in 2006."
That's probably enough. However, if you'd like to mention more specific
reasons, you can truthfully state that the great majority of families who declared
bankruptcy last year did so because they were undergoing a major life crisis
-- like huge medical bills, a costly divorce, a layoff, or a job loss -- that
threw them into a downward spiral of debt. [2] And yet this wicked bill will
PUNISH desperate people who are suffering from these unfortunate financial
SYMPTOMS, rather than HELP them by eliminating the underlying CAUSES in our
faltering economy. Folks, that's "compassionate" conservatism in a nutshell!
Additionally, this bill would make it impossible for families who've been
dealt a bad hand to get a clean start. Instead, the bill actually gives
credit-card companies new ways to seize our homes and cars if we get into financial
trouble, and makes it much more difficult for middle-class people to qualify for
a debt-liquidating personal bankruptcy.
Also consider these salient points, provided courtesy of Tom Matzzio from
Moveon.org's 4-10-05 e-mail. If this unjust bankruptcy bill passes, it will :
- Make families pay more to creditors, both in bankruptcy and after
bankruptcy, so that instead of offering a clean start, a bankruptcy
filing will leave families burdened by credit card debt, car loans,
and continued payments to banks or to payday lenders.
- Make it more expensive to file for bankruptcy by driving up fees so
that the people in the most trouble can't afford to file.
- Make it trickier to get through a bankruptcy so that more people will
get pushed out of bankruptcy with no debt relief.
- Make it harder to repay debts by increasing the minimum payments in
repayment plans.
- Preserve at all costs the millionaires' loopholes--special privileges
that allow the super-rich to escape their debts by hiding their money
in special exemptions and trusts.
You can find more talking points in the articles and essays listed below in
endnote [3].
Finally, our grassroots lobbying effort can make a BIG DIFFERENCE, so please
FORWARD this Action Alert to everyone on your e-mail list TODAY. And thanks
very much for making that crucial telephone call to your Representative at
202-224-3121!
ENDNOTES
[1] If you're shy, you can e-mail your U.S. Representative an
already-prepared constituent letter opposing the bankruptcy bill directly from these websites:
A. http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=7319731&type=CO
B. http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/31
C. http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=18843
[2] Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren's outstanding paper, "The
Growing Threat to Middle Class Families" (download it at this URL): http://www.moveon.org/r?r=690&id=5343-2553820-hfMpxYfUxKjJDNyLQkGdgQ
[3] Please read these excellent articles and essays for more facts about the
terribly regressive bankruptcy bill:
A. David Sirota's 4-5-05 TP article, "So You Support Usury, Senator?"
[The House is getting ready to debate the Republican's phony bankruptcy "reform"
bill, but Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has introduced another House bill,
entitled the "Loan Shark Prevention Act," which is designed to limit usurious
interest rates and to prevent other unconscionable abuses by credit-card companies
and commercial banks.]: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/so_you_support_usury_senator.php?dateid=20050406
B. Marilyn Gardner's 4-4-05 CSM article, "Bankruptcy Reform Hits Women
Hard" [Reports that the credit-industry authored bankruptcy bill will have a
disproportionately negative impact on American women.]: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0404/p13s01-wmgn.html
C. Evan Augustine Peterson III's 4-1-05 OnlineJournal.com essay, "Defeat
Bush's Social-Darwinist Agenda Now: Regressive Bankruptcy Bill Will Hit
Poorest Hardest": http://onlinejournal.com/Commentary/040105Peterson/040105peterson.html
D. Michael Negron's 3-31-05 TP exposé, "Talking Points Memo: The $2
Million Dollar Flip-Flop" [Shows us how the sleazy credit industry's "campaign
donations" bought off 18 US Senators so they would vote against an amendment to
the phony bankruptcy "reform" bill, which would have limited interest rates to
30 PERCENT.]: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_2_million_dollar_flipflop.php?dateid=2005040
E. David Swanson's 3-31-05 CD/BC essay, "Debt Slavery: What The
Bankruptcy Bill Could Do To You" [A thorough explanation of the Republican's terribly
unjust bankruptcy bill, its politics, and the reasons to vote AGAINST the "Debt
Slavery Act."]: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0331-33.htm
F. Peter Gosselin's 3-29-05 CD/LAT article, "Judges Say Overhaul Would
Weaken Bankruptcy System": http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0329-02.htm
G. The Nation's 3-25-05 CD/TN editorial, "Democrats: MIA": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0325-28.htm
H. Alan Maass' 3-19-05 CP essay, "Making Bankruptcy A Life Sentence:
Washington's Bipartisan Gift To The Bankers": http://www.counterpunch.org/maass03192005.html
I. Robert Scheer's 3-15-05 CD/LAT essay, "The Bankruptcy Bill: A
Tutorial In Greed": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0315-27.htm
J. Cynthia Tucker's 3-13-05 CD/AJC essay, "Bush Cheats Those He Owes":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-25.htm
K. David Broder's 3-13-05 CD/ST essay, "A Bankrupt Senate Vote":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-30.htm
L. Matthew Rothschild's 3-13-05 CD/TP essay, "Democrats Cave On
Bankruptcy Bill": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-31.htm
M. Abid Aslam's 3-12-05 CD/OW article, "Bankruptcy Bill Said To Hit
Poorest Americans Hardest": http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0312-03.htm
N. RedState's confessional 3-11-05 TP essay, "An Embarrassed Republican"
[A red-state Republican blogger laments his party's harsh bankruptcy bill by
stating, among other things, that "This is on us, folks, and it's going to hurt
a lot of people."]: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_embarra
ssed_republican.php
O. Arianna Huffington's 3-10-05 CD/AO essay, "The Senate Opens Fire on
U.S.
Consumers": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0310-22.htm
P. Paul Krugman's 3-9-05 TO essay "The Debt-Peonage Society":
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030905G.shtml
Q. Evan Augustine Peterson III's 3-9-05 TPV essay, "On Attempting To
Justify The Unjustifiable With Scripture: Debt Slavery": http://tinyurl.com/4auhq
R. Kathleen Day and Caroline Mayer's 3-6-05 WP article, "Credit Card
Penalties, Fees Bury Debtors: Senate Nears Action On Bankruptcy Curbs" [Reports
that credit card companies regularly engage in predatory lending practices, such
as bait-and-switch tactics that result in usurious 30% to 40% interest rates
and astronomical $50.00 late fees. However, the Republicans' phony bankruptcy
"reform" bill does absolutely NOTHING to stop these, and other, outrageous
predatory practices.]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10361-2005Mar5?language=printer
S. Molly Ivins' 3-3-05 CD/WFC essay, "Bad To Worse: Republicans Vote Down
Military Exemption To Bankruptcy Bill, Add Loopholes For Rich": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0303-29.htm
T. Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren's 2-12-05
CD/MH essay,
"Sick And Broke": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0212-10.htm
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About the Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III,
J.D., is the Executive Director of the American Center for International Law
("ACIL"). ©2005EAPIII EvPeters8@aol.com
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