When Lawmakers Insult Our Intelligence

I just received this newsletter from Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) - she represents my old hometown of Huntingdon Valley, PA. In her newsletter, she tells us she is "very concerned over the growing number of identity thefts occurring each year" and that she "firmly believe[s] that Congress must do more to address this serious issue and should work to ensure that American families’ personal finances are protected." Is that so, Congresswoman? Because, last I checked, you voted for the credit card-industry written bankrupty bill - a bill that allows credit card companies to destroy Americans' credit and run them into indentured servitude; a bill that Congress specifically prevented from having identity theft protections in it.

That's right, Schwartz was one of the Democrats who voted for the bankruptcy bill, even though the Senate voted against putting specific provisions in the bill protecting people who hgo into bankruptcy because of the identity theft Schwartz claims to be so concerned about. What's perhaps more disturbing is that while Schwartz purports to care about victims of identity theft, her vote for the bankruptcy bill makes clear that she not only doesn't care about identity theft, she doesn't care about people victimized by outrageous interest rates and predatory practices by the banking/credit card industry. Why not? Well, a good guess comes in looking at who she takes campaign cash from. You will notice that one of her top contributors ($85,650) is the finance industry, and that in her first run for the House she pocketed almost $20,000 in combined campaign cash from the commercial banking and finance/credit industries - industries that had a vested interest in seeing the bankruptcy bill pass.

I write this, of course, not to pick on one individual, lowly lawmaker, but to highlight how even the most junior Members of Congress learn very quickly to distort their own record, pretend to really care about ordinary people - all while they are screwing us over and insulting our intelligence. More than even the high profile scandals in Washington, that is the true culture of corruption in Congress today - and it is pervasive, whether among the most senior chairman or among the most insignificant back benchers.

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