Flashback: Jay Inslee & Adam Smith Urged Passage of Devastating Bankruptcy Bill Last Year

Tweet This magazine [THE NEW REPUBLIC] and multiple other opinion outlets on the center-left have written at length about how the bill in question is a truly contemptible piece of legislation. Worse, there is no plausible political rationale for supporting it other than to appease credit card companies. As Paul Krugman pointed out today, the bill makes no exceptions for families wiped out by medical expenses (which make up more than half of all bankruptcies) or for bankruptcy cases involving active-duty soldiers, yet it leaves any number of loopholes in place for large corporations. The political imagery here so obviously benefits anyone who'd oppose the bill you're left to conclude that the only way a congressman could possibly support it is through a craven and reflexive willingness to do the bidding of big business.

But, even worse than that, support for the bill by Democratic moderates betrays a striking obliviousness to the most important debate underway within the Democratic Party. Moderate Democrats have been under assault from grassroots liberals lately for selling out Democratic values in their rush to appease conservative interests. I normally think this criticism is highly misplaced, and that moderates have exactly the right instincts when it comes to social issues and foreign policy, even most economic issues. But in this case the moderates proved the liberals' point for them, which could set back the cause of moderates within the party for months, if not years. It really is a colossal, inexcusable mistake.