Well, the insiders who said Durbin’s pitch to help homeowners facing foreclosure would fail in the Senate were right.

In an astoundingly overt display of contempt for those facing foreclosure–and for their neighbors as well–the U.S. Senate voted 51-45 April 30 against a housing bill amendment that would have granted power to bankruptcy judges to modify terms of loans on primary residences.

Washingtontimes.com called it a “rare congressional setback” for President Obama in this report but also noted “Critics [who] said Mr. Obama failed to use any muscle to preserve the ‘cram-down’ provision,” while “the president’s allies in the Democrat-led Congress blamed lobbying by the banking industry for killing the bill.”

However, in the House, “lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill that imposes new rules on credit card companies and protects consumers from sudden interest rate increases on existing balances.”

Of course, that may be a temporary victory: the House also passed its version of the bankruptcy-relief measure in March. So even though Senate Democrats are crowing about their numbers–bolstered by Arlen Specter’s bolt from the GOP–the defeat of the bankruptcy measure shows the banking and mortgage-lending lobby is plenty strong enough to overcome any sense of party unity, not to mention common decency or logic. Read the rest of this entry »