Bingaman Votes to Pass Unfair Bankruptcy Bill

It was very disheartening to read the paper this morning and discover that our own Democratic Senator, Jeff Bingaman, voted FOR the federal bankruptcy bill, created by the credit card industry. This is the bill that makes discharging debts like massive medical bills almost impossible for the middle class. Meanwhile, it allows wealthy debtors to hide their assets via complex trust agreements and permits them to retain ownership of their expensive homes and other property.

Here's some of what Arianna Huffington has to say about this bill in a :

Instead of cracking down on predatory lending practices, closing loopholes that favor the wealthy, and strengthening the safety net for working people, single mothers and elderly Americans struggling to recover from a financial setback, the Senate put together a nasty little bill that reads like a credit industry wish list. Rubbing salt in the wound, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the bill's chief sponsor, labeled it the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005—even though it does nothing to prevent bankruptcy abuse or protect consumers.

So what does the bill do? It makes it harder for average people to file for bankruptcy protection; it makes it easier for landlords to evict a bankrupt tenant; it endangers child support payments by giving a wider array of creditors a shot at post-bankruptcy income; it allows millionaires to shield an unlimited amount of value in homes and asset protection trusts; it makes it more difficult for small businesses to reorganize, while opening new loopholes for the Enrons of the world; it allows creditors to provide misleading information; and it does nothing to reign in lending abuses that frequently turn manageable debt into unmanageable crises. Even in failure, ordinary Americans do not get a level playing field.

[. . .]
Make no mistake, the inequitable nature of the bill—bending over backwards to help the credit card industry while sticking it to American working people who fall on hard times—is no accident. Time and again over the last week, the Senate shot down amendments that would have made the bill a bit less mean-spirited. They denied proposals that would have made it easier for military veterans, the sick and the elderly to qualify for bankruptcy protection. They even rejected an amendment that would have put a 30 percent ceiling on the interest rates credit card companies can charge. Thirty percent—that's more than Paulie Walnuts charges. But 74 U.S. senators—including John Kerry, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin—clearly thought that wasn't high enough. Quick, somebody send those guys a Bible bookmarked to Deuteronomy 23:19: "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother."For years, credit-card companies have been claiming that tougher laws are needed to reign in high-flying customers using bankruptcy to game the system. But the truth is that the vast majority of people who file for bankruptcy are middle-class folks who can't pay their bills because they've lost their jobs or been hit with high medical bills or gone through a divorce.

Indeed, a recent study by Harvard University found that half of last year's 1.6 million bankruptcies were the result of crushing medical bills. Put another way: Every 30 seconds, someone in this country files for bankruptcy in the wake of a serious illness. How's that for a shocking stat? Here's another: Three-quarters of the so-called medically bankrupt had health insurance. It just wasn't enough to cover the dramatic rise in health-care costs.

But instead of adapting to this harsh new reality, where hardworking, college-educated, middle-class folks can be financially destroyed by a sudden illness, the Senate is about to approve a one-size-fits-all law that treats a family man who has sunk into debt because of a heart attack the same as a con artist who maxes out his MasterCard, then refuses to pay up.
[. . .]
There has also been an explosion in the fees that credit card companies charge: late fees, balance transfer fees, cash-advance fees, over-the-limit fees. Such fees bring in billions and are partly responsible for the fact that, even as personal bankruptcies in America have steadily increased, so have the profits of credit card companies--which reached a whopping $30 billion last year.

The Dem's yeas for the Act:
  Baucus (D-MT)
  Bayh (D-IN)
  Biden (D-DE)
  Bingaman (D-NM)
  Byrd (D-WV)
  Carper (D-DE)
  Conrad (D-ND)
  Inouye (D-HI)
  Jeffords (I-VT)
  Johnson (D-SD)
  Kohl (D-WI)
  Landrieu (D-LA)
  Lincoln (D-AR)
  Nelson (D-FL)
  Nelson (D-NE)
  Pryor (D-AR)
  Reid (D-NV)
  Salazar (D-CO)
  Stabenow (D-MI)

Click if you'd like to let Senator Bingaman know your thoughts on his vote for this terrible bill.