Another turn of the thumbscrews

The Easter Bunny has been very kind to the credit card companies. After years of intense lobbying they finally got Congress to pass an anti-bankruptcy law last week. By this law many individuals who previously would have been able to wipe out their debt under Chapter 7 will now be required to file under the much more stringent Chapter 13. President Bush and other Republicans have praised this law as an effective means of cracking down on deadbeats trying to game the credit system.

True, the number of bankruptcy filings have increased sharply in the last decade. Yet analysts have established that many of these filings are by individuals crushed under huge medical debt. Rather than looking upon this increase in bankruptcies as a symptom of very sick health care system, the Bush administration has chosen, characteristically, to place the blame squarely on the victims. It’s not that health insurance is beyond the means of many honest working class Americans. No. It’s that our society is full of lazy jerks trying to weasel their way out of paying their debts.

(As for those poor, put-upon credit card companies: in the last eight years their profits have increased a mere 163%. Can you blame them for wants to squeeze a bit more out of us?)

So, to those of you who voted Republican in the last election: when you are working that double shift at Valuemart in a futile attempt to pay off those huge hospital bills, at least you can take comfort in the fact that you continue to possess the right to bear arms to protect yourself against gays with the itch to marry.