Destroying Families

Happy Friday.

Perhaps the republicans are smarter than I thought. Perhaps their focus on Schiavo, attacking judges, and defending Tom DeLay was intended to distract America from what they were really up to: denying millions of families basic protections in the face of usurious corporate creditors.

The new pro-creditor bankruptcy legislation is another republican assault on the American family. Contrary to the right-wing media's portrayal of bankrupt families as those that overspend on cars, T.V.s, and footwear, in truth, nearly 90 percent of all personal bankruptcies result from job loss, medical costs (having denied families universal health care), a family breakup, or some combination of all three.

In this excerpt from Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi's 2003 book, The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, the authors discuss the "predatory" lending practices of mortgage and credit card industries and their effect on American families. Of course, it's the mortgage and credit card industries who wrote the new republican legislation that allows them to drain every last drop of blood from already desperate families.

Cut up your credit cards.