The Republicans in Power, or how to prove you are what your opponents call you

The Outrage meter has peaked. You can't have missed the many, many commercials for various law firms offering to help you with bankruptcy "before the new laws go into effect." Well, ring the bell -- they're now in effect. And that's a profoud tragedy, and a probably-lasting negative for the Republican Party.

What should a bankruptcy system for individuals look like? It should offer a safety net to those who, for reasons of health, long-term job loss, and other reasonable dilemmas, find themselves unable to keep up with their bills. It should protect them from the moment they file, and it should offer, if the case is severe enough, the capacity to wipe away existing debt with the corresponding negative of having a bankruptcy filing on your credit report for six years. I would go farther, and suggest bank loans that are geared to HELP an individual recover and become a productive member of society again, rather than making those exact people only able to get the worst interest rates, the worst support, etc.

Our current system takes someone who, for instance, can't work for eighteen months because of injury or health debacle, and leads them through bankruptcy... and then shreds them by leaving them high and dry. Not only high and dry, but that poor individual will now find it next-to-impossible to get any real help under terms that are doable -- he'll face only the highest interest rates and the like. We have a system that adds misery to financial disaster instead of helping mitigate it and overcome it.

And now, courtesy of the Republican Party in power, we have revisions to the bankruptcy laws that achieve exactly two things: it makes it far worse for someone in that debacle, and it gives to mortgage and credit companies who are already making tons of cash the ability to put serious hurt on those people who do fall into financial debacles. The system now offers little protection to those who file for the first few vulnerable weeks, while you go through the idiotic, over-complicated layers and steps to get to the court, so that your creditors, whom the court notifies immediately, can now swoop in and take away your house, etc. Thank you, Republicans, for screwing people when they're down. You've just made yourselves into exactly what Democrats have accused you of for years: being almost hyperactively against the poor and middle class and totally pro-business. Actually, in this case, it isn't pro-Business -- it's pro-financial-industry-only. And screw-the-individual, the poor person who perhaps suffered a catastrophic health issue and couldn't work for a year or more. He'll face no protections after he files for a short time, leaving him exposed to the circling sharks; he'll face a ridiculous array of hoops to jump through, including having to take classes in money management (um, the whole point of this is, it wasn't mis-managing money that got him to that point, it was a health disaster that came up unforeseen) and other inanities. After all of that lunacy, he may find that he can't get rid of his debts, because the new "formula" judges have to use is so arcane and twisted to achieving a pre-determined end (keeping people out of Chapter 11 and increasing the Chapter 7 filings, whereby debt is not wiped out and very little real help is offered).

So here's to the Republican Party, champion of the financial industry, beater of the downtrodden, for specifically and deliberately targetting the poor, the middle class, and anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in a position to have to file for bankruptcy in the misguided thought that the government might actually HELP them instead of adding to their misery. Under this Republican administration and this Republican Congress, don't delude yourself -- they don't care, and they have now taken specific actions to make sure that, at your worst moment, when all is darkest, the government (courtesy of Republicans) will now make sure to add to your misery rather than mitigate it or assist you with it.

Cheers, Republican Party! (sarcasm intended)

Okay, sarcasm off. (click) Do yourself a favor, Republicans, independents. If you can tolerate the Democratic candidate in your district, and the Republican in your district voted for this atrocity, VOTE HIM/HER OUT. In general, my votes have tended to fall more into the Republican category than Democrats, but there are time when that isn't the case. As when I lived in Louisiana and voted for J. Bennett Johnson, Dem., for U.S. Senator (twice). And now, if my area will serve up Democrats that are palatable, they will flatly have earned my vote -- and the Republicans will have specifically earned my contempt.

This does lead me to another conclusion, for another argument on another day: that the U.S. is best served with a Republican White House (more consistent foreign policy, who actually recognize that people out there hate the U.S. and do kill its citizens, etc.) and a Democratic Congress (whose far-left impulses are checked by the White House). We tend to get better laws that actually help people and build a better Republic under that organization than we do when either side controls all the levers of power.