U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Bankruptcy Reform Act - Cloture.
Early in its debate on the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2001, the Senate demonstrated strong bipartisan support for bankruptcy reform when it voted to invoke cloture and cut off a threatened filibuster. At the urging of the U.S. Chamber, the full Senate eventually approved the bill, and the House passed a similar measure. Although a conference committee made progress in resolving differences between the House and Senate legislation in 2001, final bankruptcy legislation was not signed into law. H.R. 333 would establish need-based criteria for bankruptcy protection and require debtors with sufficient means to pay back a significant portion of their debts - all while protecting those who truly need bankruptcy protection. The number of bankruptcies in the U.S. has skyrocketed from 348,000 in 1984 to a record 1.43 million in 2001, costing American business more than $40 billion in bankruptcy losses every year.
While the vast majority of bankruptcy cases are legitimate, many individuals and businesses have exploited the bankruptcy system to wipe out debts they can afford to repay, passing the costs of their filings onto others. Small businesses and those with slim profit margins cannot absorb the losses generated by this abuse of the bankruptcy system. The U.S. Chamber has been a longstanding leader in the fight to prevent this abuse, supporting bankruptcy reform legislation in the 105th and 106th Congresses. In 2000, the House and Senate approved bankruptcy reform legislation with strong, bipartisan support, but President Clinton "pocket vetoed" the legislation by failing to sign it into law.