PDA Launches Campaign to Defeat "Debt Slavery"

[Kevin Spidel]

Any day now, your Representative in Congress will vote on a very important "Debt Slavery" Bankruptcy Bill (HR 685) that could literally change your life. The bill was written by credit card companies, which made $30 billion in profits in 2004, and are hungry for more.

PDA has teamed up with Democrats.com and others to launch www.DebtSlavery.org. DebtSlavery.org is a coalition of national and local organizations working to block this bill. For more information and more on what you can do to help, see: http://www.debtslavery.org

The bill will prevent many families from declaring bankruptcy under Chapter 7. Rather than being able to cancel some debts and make a difficult new start, families and individuals will be placed on long-term payment plans to credit card companies, companies that can take their houses, their cars, their child-support payments, and their paychecks. If this bill becomes law, an unexpected medical expense or job loss could leave you a slave to debt.

Our current bankruptcy law gives families a chance to get back on their feet, without losing everything. Under the current system, a judge looks at a family's actual income and expenses and has the ability to distinguish between a debtor whose child has diabetes and a debtor who's gone on reckless shopping sprees.

Under the bankruptcy "reform" bill before the House, judges would no longer be able to make these distinctions. Courts would have to apply standard "means testing" formulas for expenses, regardless of what a family's actual circumstances might be. The new system would also predict a family's future income based on the previous six months of income, even if someone in that family was just laid off. Although families earning below the median income would be spared the foolishness of this "means testing," these same families, under the new law, would be required to ante up for credit counseling ­ and pay for significant new legal procedures and paperwork.

Our current bankruptcy system is working. Abuse is minimal. At most, says the nonpartisan American Bankruptcy Institute, only 3 percent of the families who file for bankruptcy protection discharge debts they could have paid. Please, take one minute to write to your congress member now: http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=7319731&type=CO

Tell them if it ain't broke don't fix it.