The two year anniversary of the passage of the nation’s most sweeping bankruptcy reform law, the Bankruptcy Abuse Protection and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCA), provides an opportunity to look back at the banking and credit industry money that drove the legislative process in the Spring of 2005, and to examine how bankruptcy, fed primarily by credit card debt, is increasingly touching the lives of working Kentuckians and students.

On March 4, 2005, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) initiated a procedural move in the United States Senate that would ultimately force a vote on a far-reaching bankruptcy bill six days later. Roundly criticized by consumer organizations and conservative radio talk show hosts alike,[i] some version of the bankruptcy reform legislation had been introduced in every session since 1997.