THE CREDITORS' BALL

If ever there was a chance for the Democrats to re-establish their bona fides as the party of the little guy, the Bankruptcy Reform bill is it. The bill is payback to the big banks and highly profitable credit card companies, which funneled $100 million to candidates and parties over the past eight years--two-thirds of it to Republicans. It would impose a means test to determine whether small debtors can avail themselves of Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which lets them pay what they can out of existing assets, giving them a fresh start, or whether they would be forced to take Chapter 13 and continue to pay off creditors out of future earnings. It puts debtors' attorneys in financial jeopardy and creates a wasteful federal enforcement bureaucracy. The bill's sponsors avoid mentioning how credit card promoters lure the uncreditworthy; how joblessness, stagnant wages and lack of health insurance force the poor to use plastic to buy basic necessities; and how the bill leaves crooked companies like Enron free to declare bankruptcy and protect themselves from claims by employees who lost their pensions. After beating back earlier versions of the bill, many Democrats appeared to be folding without a fight; the Judiciary Committee approved the latest version--with Democrats Joseph Biden, Dianne Feinstein and Herb Kohl supporting the President. Final passage, despite a few valiant Democrats' efforts, seemed, at this writing, all but certain.

COLOMBIAN QUAGMIRE

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