Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston
Globe
December 18, 2000, Monday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A20
LENGTH: 431 words
HEADLINE:
PUNITIVE MEASURE
BODY:
PRESIDENT CLINTON is
expected this week to exercise the last veto of his presidency on an
anticonsumer bankruptcy bill that eminently deserves to fall by the wayside. The
Senate passed the measure earlier this month.
Clinton opposes the bill
for a range of reasons: It tries to curb a recent escalation in consumer
bankruptcies by coming down too hard on families that fall victim to job loss,
medical expenses, or divorce; it permits once-wealthy debtors in certain states
to shield expensive homes from bankruptcy court action; and it contains a
special provision allowing violent demonstrators at abortion
clinics to use bankruptcy law to avoid fines.
Ordinarily, the 70-28 margin in favor of the bill in the
Senate would indicate its backers had the 67 votes needed to override a veto.
But the president can exercise a pocket veto by simply not signing the bill
since Congress adjourned this weekend within 10 days of the Senate action.
How the effort to change the bankruptcy law will fare in the next
Congress, under President Bush, is hard to predict. With changes in committee
assignments, it is possible that lawmakers will produce a different bill, for
good or ill. In any case, Clinton should not hesitate to veto this one.
Banks and credit-card companies are justifiably concerned that in
prosperous times bankruptcies doubled, to 1.35 million in 1999. Some adjustments
to reduce abuse of the bankruptcy option by obliging more debtors to make
repayments are in order. But the measure backed by the credit industry is too
punitive, especially in light of a 1999 Harvard study showing that 40 percent of
all bankruptcies are due to medical bills.
Among the bill's harshest
critics are law professors who specialize in this field. No fewer than 116 of
them wrote to senators this month detailing the measure's shortcomings,
including a provision that would force parents and children to compete with
credit-card companies for child support or alimony out of the paychecks of
debtors who have gone through bankruptcy.
The professors also lambasted
the bill for its failure to close the loophole that lets house-rich debtors in
states like Texas and Florida shield their mansions while less affluent debtors
get taken to the cleaners. Maintaining that loophole was one price the credit
industry had to pay to win the support of powerful politicians from those
states.
Otherwise, banks and credit-card companies secured votes for
this bill the old-fashioned way: with $6 million in campaign
contributions. The measure richly deserves a Clinton veto.
LOAD-DATE: December 18, 2000 
