Hey, Pelosi, here's an idea for you.
We need help out here in America - we're up to our necks in the cack. By all means, roll back Bush's tax cuts - that will help. PAYGO's a good start, and a minimum wage hike will be much appreciated. And we could really, really use some relief on those student loans.
If you want to get serious about helping the poor and middle class, the BEST thing you could do is get started on health care, but I realize that will take time. But you could help us now, easily, just by taking back a piece of legislation that never should have been passed in the first place.
The bankruptcy bill the Rethug Congress pushed through was a travesty, a straight up handout to the credit card companies. I doubt very much that it helped a single individual who really needs help - we all know that Mastercard and Visa are doing fine, thank you. Bankruptcy used to be a last resort, the path you took when you had no other alternative. Sure, it was abused at times, but more rarely than otherwise. Now, it is no longer a viable option for most people.
While credit card companies send applications to everyone (my cat received one yesterday), more and more frequently, with more and more difficult terms, regardless of responsibility, background, or anything else, people who foolishly get sucked into the promise of "free money" by slick advertising and relentless marketing no longer have any recourse when they get in over their heads. In the past, bankruptcy constituted a stiff penalty - it taught the debtor a lesson, and asked them to pay what they were able. Now, it penalizes more than it teaches - it requires them to give what they do not have, forcing people to languish in poverty with no prospect of rising from it. And so the middle class shrinks, and the already poor sink deeper into poverty.
This bill was ill-advised in the extreme, and, if Congress truly wants to display their willingness to assist the poor and middle classes, they will repeal it with all due haste.