Congress Turns a Deaf Ear to Katrina Survivors Trying to Rebuild
What is it going to take for Congress to provide Katrina victims some relief - without lawmakers, so completely out of touch with the survivors, blocking the effort?
--"I don't know why some of my colleagues are actually encouraging people..to file for bankruptcy, because it's a stigma that wrecks your credit record for at least eight years." - House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner
(Crafting law for the most advanced nation on the planet and he can't find a way to give these people credit?)
--"For someone who is genuinely poor and down and out and doesn't have the ability to repay their debts, there is no change at all," - Sensenbrenner
("No change"?? What about putting these people through the Bankruptcy Means Test, Debtor Education and Credit Counseling Certification? What about hiring an attorney who has to sort through 500 pages of new requirements? What about the additional expense?)
--Sensenbrenner stated that he would NOT hold hearings for relief from bankruptcy for Katrina survivors.
(Why not lend a helping hand here? Well we can only guess - although it's hard not to suspect that there is more here than meets the eye - after all Sensenbrenner holds nearly $250,000 in credit card stock and has received approximately $92,000 in donations from credit card company PAC's.)
I don't know how many Katrina victims can fall back on a quarter of a million in stock, but my guess is, not many.
How can anyone with that kind of financial backing, sitting dry, on Capitol Hill, even begin to understand the plight of a catastrophe refugee? We're talking about people who have been huddled in a shelter trying to reconstruct their financial records on scrap paper - people who don't even know if their old job will resurface by 2006. People whose attention is on vitals like, clean water and clothes, disease prevention and finding family members. And the Chairman has the gall to say, effectively, 'we're not going to talk about it anymore'!?
Going through a few extra hurdles isn't a problem? Come on, get in touch. Here's a little help >> Google Video
Also see:
Consumer Affairs: Congress Ponders Katrina Bankruptcy Relief
Vitter-Landrieu Lousiana Katrina Reconstruction Bill (pdf)
