CALL OR EMAIL YOUR CONGRESSMAN TODAY!-OPPOSE UNFAIR BANKRUPTCY LAW
September 16, 2002
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READERS- THE TIME IS SHORT! Call or email your Congressman today, to oppose the unfair bankruptcy “reform” bill.
CALLING ON THE TELPHONE is best: To Call your Congressman, go to: http://clerkweb.house.gov/106/mbrcmtee/members/teledir/members/mcapdir.htm and get your Representative’s telephone number.
Call, and ask for the legislative aide that handles bankruptcy. Tell him or her that you oppose the bankruptcy bill, H.R. 333, and that you wish the Congressman to oppose it. PLEASE CALL TODAY! YOUR RIGHTS ARE AT STAKE. You can obtain your Congressman’s name, and email address, at http://www.house.gov/writerep/ , but time is very short, and telephone calls are best. Your opinion really does count!
TO SEND AN EMAIL TO YOUR CONGRESSMAN, go to: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ to write an email.
Below is an article by Molly Ivins concerning this bill.
MOLLY IVINS: THIS BILL STINKS
By Molly Ivins Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, September 12, 2002
AUSTIN, Texas — Sometimes you have to connect the dots, and sometimes the connections just hit you over the head.
Congress is on the verge of taking a final vote on the bankruptcy bill, the product of a five-year effort by credit-card companies to stack the law in
their favor and against average citizens. But you will be relieved to learn that our lawmakers have thoughtfully included a loophole that leaves six states, including Florida and Texas, free to continue providing
extraordinary advantages to rich citizens from all over the country who need to shelter their gelt from bankruptcy proceedings. The millionaire protection amendment.
And this is about to happen despite the fact that one of the bill’s most important sponsors, a congressman with financial problems, got a $447,500 loan — as The New York Times genteelly put it, “on what appeared to be highly favorable terms,” from (guess who? Right again) — a major credit card company.
Rep. James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, got the loan from the MBNA Corp. of Delaware in 1998, the world’s largest independent credit card agency,
just one month before he signed on as the lead Democratic sponsor of the bill, giving it the appearance of a bipartisan effort. Quel coincidence, eh?
And that’s just what Rep. Moran said. “The timing of my loan was wholly
coincidental with the co-sponsorship of bankruptcy reform.”
I find that entirely believable, since I live in Texas where such coincidences lie thick on the ground. Just last summer, our governor Rick Perry appointed a former Enron executive to the state Public Utilities
Commission, to better to regulate our energy market. The very next day, Perry got a $25,000 check from Kenny Boy Lay, but Perry explained, it was “totally coincidental.”
You would think Moran would have a little more sympathy for Americans caught in the toils of the bankruptcy laws — his own financial problems stem from
running up debts on his credit cards, stock market losses and paying for cancer treatment for his daughter. Ninety percent of all bankruptcies are caused by getting sick, getting laid off or divorce. But then, most Americans don’t get half-million dollar loans that qualify as the largest
mortgage package given by MBNA to any single debtor that year.
Naturally, most congresspeople get their money from credit card companies in the form of campaign contributions, rather than loans. And that makes it so
much better, you see. MBNA was President Bush’s largest corporate contributor in 2000 and, since 1990, blanks alone have made contributions of over $106 million to Congress, the parties and presidential candidates. The Center for Responsive Politics website (opensecrets.org) has the gory
details on who got how much with links to current contributions.
Bankruptcies have been rising in recent years, but there is no evidence of abuse of the system by average Americans or that it is hurting the card
companies. Credit-card debt and credit-card companies profits are rising, too.
This card-company bill institutes a harsh “means test” and makes it much
harder to get the “fresh start” status form bankruptcy. Average citizens will be pushed into five-year repayment plans, leaving less for child support. The bill will particularly affect women.
But whose fault is it that bankruptcies are rising? The Public Interest
Research Group points out that the four leading banking regulatory agencies — the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the FDIC — just issued a report in June documenting predatory lending practices. The credit card companies are making loans to consumers already in debt trouble, not to mention offering cards to teen-agers. Some credit-card companies charge monthly minimum payments so low consumers wind up owing more than they did before, instead of ever paying off their credit-card debts.
Citibank has just agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission $200 million to settle predatory lending charges. So why reward the very companies that are
causing the problem? Is this what Congress intended with its “Corporate Responsibility Act”?
The bill does contain a provision to keep Kenny Boy and Company from taking advantage of the millionaire’s loophole: You can’t use it if you’ve been convicted of securities fraud. Great, but as you may have read, it is extremely difficult to get convictions for securities fraud.
In Texas, at the end of the tech bubble, the S&L frauds and after the stock
market dive, people here are suddenly scrambling for high-end houses. They trade up from the $1 million house to the $5 million or $10 million. The state’s “homestead” exemption protects the family home from the claims of
debtors. It’s a good thing for most people, but has become another form of fraud by the big rich.
This bill stinks. Write, phone, fax or e-mail your representatives, and remind them that they work for you, not the credit-card industry.
