"The metaphor that Elizabeth Warren often uses is that debt is like a heavy backpack - ok if you're walking on smooth terrain, but a disastrous burden if the ground gets rough and you trip. So if you get sick and face medical bills and work interruptions, then the debt service that seemed just on the right side of ok when everything was going well suddenly becomes disastrous..." ------------------------------ See also Warren’s trenchant comment before a Senate committee last week that the planned overhaul of the bankruptcy laws by the Bush administration "unfairly hits families driven into bankruptcy because of large health care bills and does virtually nothing to prevent large corporations from abusing the process through techniques like seeking bankruptcy protection to limit pension obligations.” Nothing like putting matters into their proper class context.
The rest of the article – (“Quick, Early Gains Embolden Business Lobby on Capitol Hill” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/business/18lobby.html) – is also worth reading, not least because of Dianne Feinstein’s inexplicable decision to break ranks with other Democrats opposing the bill. The Democrats were trying to block the bill’s referral out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by tying a rider to it which would prevent anti-abortion groups from using the bankruptcy laws to avoid paying damages to clinics they disrupted. I would have thought the liberal pro-choice Feinstein would have been the last to bloc with the Republicans on this issue, nothwithstanding pressure from lobbyists representing the major banks, credit card companies, and retailers. Evidently not.
MG