Just shows to go ya–how some pols will vote differently, once the threat of a filibuster is removed (as we discussed here and in Part I of  a two-part piece on the “stealth filibuster”). In fact, the jobs bill might have been scuttled–or “shelved”–had not newly-seated Scott Brown (R-MA) and four other Republican Senators voted against a filibuster on Feb. 23: even with those five votes, the filibuster was avoided by only two votes, clearing that hurdle 62-30 (60 votes are required).

Filibuster affects voting strategy

Yet, when the jobs measure itself came to a vote, eight more Republicans crossed the aisle, which sent it back to the House, where a much larger jobs measure had passed in December.  Also from The Washington Post: “The House voted 217 to 201 to approve a $15 billion measure that would give tax breaks to companies for hiring new employees. Six Republicans joined the vast majority of Democrats in supporting the bill, which also includes a one-year reauthorization of the law governing federal highway funding, as well as an expansion of the Build America Bonds program and a provision allowing companies to write off equipment purchases.”

Unfortunately, the measure (which still must clear the Senate again, due to House revisions) is not expected to have a major impact on unemployment and almost certainly will not help consumers who right-now-today are staring at foreclosure or bankruptcy.

‘Stop calling this a jobs bill’

Among the pols who voiced disappointment by the 10-fold reduction, a shared sentiment immediately following the Senate vote seemed to be to drop the euphemism “jobs bill” –that is, to simply concede that it’s a tax-credit bill that might indirectly spur businesses to hire people who have been out of work more than 60 days.

For example, quoted in the “Political Blotter” at ContraCostaTimes.com, Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) said, ““When presented with a powerful opportunity to create jobs and address the growing unemployment rates among the chronically unemployed, the Senate responded with a whimper. A ‘go slow’, piecemeal approach will do little to address our nation’s need for employment.

“It is critical that policy solutions include not only small business relief but worker training, the use of existing federal programs and targeted job creation to those communities with the highest rates and longest history of unemployment. Until the needs of the chronically unemployed are met, we implore leadership to stop calling this ‘the jobs bill.’ ”

Despite her confusing syntax, we get Ms. Lee’s point: seems like a “jobs bill” should, in fact, create jobs.

Although some tiny gains are trickling, the national jobs picture remains grim.

Job losses, job gains

One Wall Street Journal blog is reporting “a sign the job market is inching toward recovery [because] 31 states added jobs in the first month of the year.”

Using Labor Department data regarding  the official unemployment rate, the piece continues: “In January, the overall U.S. unemployment rate fell to 9.7% from 10% a month earlier, while the nation’s economy shed 26,000 jobs. The job losses continued in February amid strong weather effects, but the jobless rate remained at 9.7%.” (By the way, that blog also has jobless rates for each state.)

But remember, the “official rate” is not the real rate, which includes those who have given up looking for work as well as those who can’t find full time work. That rate, the “total unemployment” rate, peaked at 17.4 per cent in October 2009. Sometimes referred to as the “U-6″ category, this rate is important for two reasons. First, of course, it shows the number of U.S. unemployed is actually closer to 20 per cent than it is to 10 per cent. Why the media continues to buy in to the Labor Department’s lower number–the “U-3 category, now at 9.7 per cent and holding–is simply confounding.

Second, the U-6 category is telling in that gains in the  U-3 category should parallel gains in the U-6–but that isn’t happening. As pointed out in another WSJ blog: “The U.S. jobless rate was unchanged at 9.7% in February, following a decline the previous month, but the government’s broader measure of unemployment ticked up 0.3 percentage point to 16.8%.”

So what’s that mean? Well, here’s the conclusion from that piece: “A U-6 figure that converges toward the official rate could indicate improving confidence in the labor market and the overall economy. This month pushes convergence even further away.”

Unemployment extension passes ‘no debate” hurdle in Senate

the Senate. A larger measure, described today in The  Washington Post, moved forward when eight Repubs joined 58 Dems to limit debate: “The bill includes one-year extensions of unemployment insurance and COBRA health benefits, as well as money to help states pay for Medicaid and private pension funds that have taken a big hit during the recession.”
According to the Post, how the House is expected to act on the larger measure is not known.

*************************************************************************

If you are overwhelmed by debt, filing for bankruptcy protection may be your most pragmatic alternative. If you are facing foreclosure of your home (sometimes referred to as your “primary residence,” as opposed to a second home, or “vacation home”),  bankruptcy protection may be your best route to saving the home. If you are struggling with medical bills, you may be in a special category for setting debt aside, and if you have problems with credit-card debt, please know the laws have changed recently. For bankruptcy basics, please see:

Principles of bankruptcy

Basics of bankruptcy

Introduction to Chapter 7

Introduction to Chapter 13

It’s a crucial piece of legislation, long overdue.

As reported March 23 at washingtonindependent.com: “Without government help, 2.4 million homeowners will lose their homes to foreclosure this year, according to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), an advocacy group.

“Every 13 seconds another family receives notice a lender’s foreclosing on their home. That means  6,600 additional foreclosures start every day at a time foreclosure rates already are four times normal levels. A week ago, the number of families forced into foreclosure since January 1 surpassed 500,000.”

Every 13 seconds… Sure, we’re often reminded that most folks have been able to keep their payments current (at what levels of sacrifice, though, no one seems to be investigating), and maybe many homeowners who got into trouble were trying to flip houses, or maybe they refinanced and went on a cruise.

Still… every 13 seconds.

And as the Independent’s post mentions, “CRL projects that 73 million families will each lose $6,000 in home value in 2009 just for living in the proximity of foreclosed homes.”

Seventy-three million multiplied by 6,000? That’s a larger sum than most homeowner calculators will display–and that sum doesn’t even address the foreclosed homes themselves.

“Meanwhile,” the Independent’s post continues, “housing legislation that would cut into these numbers remains stalled in the Senate over a provision, unpopular among the banks, that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of primary mortgages to help homeowners keep their homes. Credit Suisse has estimated that the bankruptcy provision alone would prevent 20 percent of all foreclosures — keeping more than 1.6 million families in their homes between now and 2013.

“Claiming time restraints, Senate leaders don’t plan to take up the housing bill until after their two-week-long Easter recess, which doesn’t end until April 20. Yet Congress had plenty of time to fritter the last week grappling with efforts to clawback $165 million in bonuses to AIG — hardly a tiny sum, but it’s a rounding error relative to the cumulative wealth being lost by the country’s homeowners while the housing bill idles.”

And, even though CNBC has been able to locate the worst domestic areas for foreclosure rates (see slideshow here ), increases in bankruptcy filings continue abroad.  The UPI is reporting Canadian bankruptcies on the rise, not only for individuals but also for corporations. And the middle class is even getting hit in Australia, where a small business site, “The Age,” cites a survey showing a staggering increase in the number of mortgage lenders listed as creditors: “In what could foreshadow the crush of record high home prices on cash-strapped households, the report showed a 700% jump in the amount of mortgage providers listed by bankrupts as creditors over the two years to 2007. Bankrupts blaming their home mortgage grew to 16% in 2007 from 2% in 2005.”

Back in the USA, some attention is being shifted to the bankruptcy code itself, with some suggesting that the much heralded reform act of 2005 actually needs reforming itself. In a long, thorough article posted March 23 at USA Today’s site,  Christine Dugas writes, “Congress wrangled for eight years before passing a reform act aimed at curbing abuse and ending an alarming rise in bankruptcy filings. With the economy in tatters and personal fortunes often in even worse shape these days, the bankruptcy law is beginning to undergo scrutiny again.”

Dugas contends that Congress will continue to focus on the immediate need to help with foreclosures (in other words, the legislation that the Senators are sitting on until after the big Easter-egg hunt). “But once that’s settled,” Dugas says, “attention will turn to the 2005 bankruptcy reform.”

“There is continuing concern about the bankruptcy-reform bill and what its effects have been,” says Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who leads the Senate Judiciary subcommittee that oversees bankruptcy law. “We are looking at a number of things that we can do to address the problems.”

Whitehouse was scheduled today to “hold a hearing that will discuss legislation he has introduced that would allow families burdened by exorbitant credit card rates and fees to more simply discharge their debt under bankruptcy. He is considering several other proposals.”

Bolstered with much good data, balanced quotes and comprehensive background explanations, Dugas’ piece also explains the credit card industry’s reasons for lobbying so hard for changes in the bankruptcy law. Beneath the sub-heading “Credit card fees pile on profits,” Dugas explains:

“Credit card fees and interest rates were at the center of the reform debate. During a multiyear, multimillion-dollar lobbying effort by credit card companies to change the law, Americans were told that they had to pay higher credit card fees because bankruptcy filings had caused the industry to lose about $40 billion a year. ‘Congress should do as much as possible to reduce the $400 hidden tax on every American family due to the increasing number of bankruptcies that are filed in this country,’ said then-Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, during a House subcommittee meeting in 1997 at the outset of the eight-year battle for reform.

“Since the reform passed, the credit card industry’s profits have grown. It earned $19.9 billion from penalty fees in 2008, up from $14.8 billion in 2005, according to R.K. Hammer, a consulting firm. The industry’s pretax profit climbed to about $39 billion in 2008 from $30.6 billion in 2005, according to CardTrak, a credit card research firm.

“But there has been no rollback on credit card fees, says Robert McKinley, founder of CardTrak.com. Punitive rates are just as aggressive as they were before, even though the prime rate has dropped dramatically. In 2005, the punitive rate was 30.99% as the prime rate was up to 7.00%, McKinley says. Last year, the punitive credit card rate was 30.88%, but the prime rate was only 4.00%, which he calls an unprecedented rate spread.

“In addition, credit card payment grace periods have continued to fall since the bankruptcy reform, according to a report by Michael Simkovic, a former Olin Fellow at Harvard Law School. ‘The data is unambiguous: 2005 Bankruptcy Reform benefited credit card companies and hurt their customers,’ says the report, released in July.”

Dugas explains that before the 2005 act was passed, “a family overwhelmed with home mortgage and credit card debt most often filed for Chapter 7, which would allow them to have all unsecured debts, including credit card bills, discharged. That might have freed the family to pay the mortgage and keep their home.

“But a major goal of the reform was to force such families to rely on Chapter 13 bankruptcy instead, which requires them to repay debts in full, or in part, over several years.”

But that has not been the case, as mentioned here. As Dugas points out, “Last year, Chapter 7 filings — accounting for 76% of personal filings — continued to outpace Chapter 13 filings. Chapter 7 filings made up 80% of the total filings in 2005; 72% in 2004.”

Meanwhile, some more 13-second periods have passed, and more folks have received forclosure notices.

Yet, our Senators are waiting on the Easter Bunny.