Originally posted by: Buz2b
Originally posted by: BBond
I found this article by Cynthia Tucker, the editorial page editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (re-printed in the Baltimore Sun), on the bankruptcy law just passed and it brings up a core question that I've had.
Why would American voters elect people whose economic policies work against average Americans?
I still can't explain it but read this op-ed piece and you'll see the point as well as a possible motive. This is a bankruptcy law that benefits banks and credit card companies, forgives the rich and rich corporations, but penalizes average, elderly and disabled Americans.
Bush deals another blow to the middle
By Cynthia Tucker
Originally published March 14, 2005
ATLANTA - President Bush didn't campaign on a promise to make it harder for average Americans to regain their financial footing after filing for bankruptcy. Even if he had, he probably would have been re-elected anyway.
Most Americans haven't noticed the president's relentless assault on programs and policies that protect the middle class against the caprice of the marketplace. If average Americans are living with a higher degree of financial anxiety, they blame outsourcing or high taxes or illegal Mexican immigrants. They haven't recognized that the Republicans have middle America in their crosshairs and that President Bush has given the order to fire.
The war on working- and middle-class America continued apace last week when a piece of legislation favored by bankers and credit card companies - and pushed by the president - gained steam in the Senate. The new bankruptcy bill would make it harder for middle-income individuals to file under Chapter 7, which usually allows some debt-forgiveness. Under the new law, individuals (with very few exceptions) have to keep working to pay off their debts, even if it takes several years.
Financial industry lobbyists claim they are only going after deadbeats who can afford to pay, but the research suggests otherwise. A few deadbeats may indeed file for bankruptcy to get out of paying for cars or big-screen TVs they knew they couldn't afford. But the vast majority, experts say, have been forced into substantial debt by some unforeseen personal catastrophe - death of the major breadwinner, job loss or medical crisis, for example.
Meanwhile, the rich will not be held to the same standard. They are free to be deadbeats. Senators defeated an amendment to the bill that would have closed loopholes allowing the wealthy to hold onto their mansions and other assets when they file for bankruptcy. They also turned back an amendment that would prevent corrupt companies, such as Enron, from sheltering assets that ought to go to former employees. But the Senate wouldn't accept an amendment that would have allowed the not-rich elderly to keep their houses if they go bankrupt.
Years from now, sociologists and political scientists will explain how Republicans persuaded so many voters to act against their own economic interests. Even as the GOP heaps more and more benefits on the wealthy and big business - tax breaks, so-called tort reform, anti-union policies - and strips them from average workers, the party continues to get much of its support from those same workers.
It's a mystery.
Perhaps it can be partly explained by the virtue of self-reliance, an ethic embedded in the American psyche that is often associated with conservatives. But a sense of invulnerability has also made it easier for the GOP to carry out this assault on average Americans: Most people don't think they'll be the victims of a financial crisis until the crisis befalls them.
The rewrite of the bankruptcy laws comes after a series of other developments that have frayed the safety net for average families. Even as job security declines, unemployment compensation has been reduced. Guaranteed pensions are disappearing, as is employer-provided health insurance. While wealthy Americans are coddled, working Americans are being subjected to the whims of a rapacious capitalism.
But Mr. Bush didn't say that during the last campaign. Instead, he talked about an "ownership society."
He neglected to explain that most of the owning would be done by the very rich.
Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her column appears Mondays in The Sun.
This "journalist" is talking out of he "lower" mouth. There is no "protection" for the wealthy to keep their mansions or other assets in this bill. Quite the contrary, the bill provides that those in a better position to pay (wealthier) will be made to pay and not file bankruptcy (or at least chapter 13). The bulk of the bill is based on need: Those that really need bankruptcy, will have it available. People like Trump will find the door closed.
Typical scare tactics so predictably used by the left anytime something demanding personal responsibility is passed. Look at the hell they raised when the republicans managed to get welfare reform passed under Clinton. You'd have thought we were going to starve every child in the nation. Instead we saw a reduction in the welfare roles as (at least some) of those able to, went to work. Nope, it wasn't perfect or good enough but it was needed and it was a start. The same thing is going on here. It ain't perfect and I don't think it goes far enough but the Bankruptcy reform bill is a start in the right direction. This will bear out over time, I'm sure.
You're wrong.
In fact, for a bill purported to fight abuse, it leaves intact a huge loophole through which wealthy filers can protect millions - even billions - of dollars while being absolved of their debts. The loophole takes the form of a certain trust exempted from the requirement to liquidate. Also, the bill only narrows another loophole that permits the wealthy to protect their assets by putting them into mansions in five states that that have no limits on exemptions for homes.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) sought to eradicate that loophole. He settled on a compromise that limited its use. Notably, among the long series of Democratic amendments rejected by the Senate were two that would have entirely closed both loopholes for the rich.
Editorial: Put brakes on bankruptcy bill
Besides, this is now old news. Later!
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