mr. speaker , i yield myself the balance of my time . 
mr. speaker , one does not need to get a good grade in economics 101 to realize that those who pay their bills as agreed end up having to pay for the cost of debts that are ripped off in bankruptcy . 
the number of bankruptcy filings has exploded . 
the number of proven instances of people gaming the system and using bankruptcy as a financial planning tool has gone up , and this bill stops those types of abuses . 
i would like to quote from page 4 of the committee report from testimony that was given by professor todd zywicki , and he said , `` like all other business expenses , when creditors are unable to collect debts because of bankruptcy , some of those losses are inevitably passed on to responsible americans who live up to their financial obligations . 
every phone bill , electric bill , mortgage , furniture purchase , medical bill and car loan contains an implicit bankruptcy tax that the rest of us pay to subsidize those who do not pay their bills . 
exactly how much of these bankruptcy losses is passed on from lenders to consumer borrowers is unclear , but economics tell us that at least some of it is . 
we all pay for bankruptcy abuse in higher down payments , higher interest rates and higher costs for goods and services. '' the credit union national association , which is a national organization of nonprofit credit unions that are owned by their members , said that , as of 2002 , they lost over $ 3 billion from bankruptcies since congress started its consideration of bankruptcy reform legislation in 1998 ; and cuna estimates that over 40 percent of all credit union losses in 2004 will be bankruptcy related , and those losses will total approximately $ 900 million . 
now the credit unions are not the big issuers of credit cards . 
they are owned by their members , and those members have to pay additional costs of the services of their own credit unions because of the huge write-offs that have been described in this report . 
now if my friends on the other side of the aisle were so concerned about bankruptcy abuse and the fact that this bill does not deal with the problem , they could have spent the time drafting an amendment in the nature of a substitute . 
they were offered by the committee on rules and i requested the committee on rules to make such a substitute in order , but , no , all they want to do is criticize , attack and come up with no positive alternatives . 
if that is their position , then the bankruptcy tax that everybody realizes is passed on to people who pay their bills as agreed to is on their shoulders , because we are trying to stop the abuse . 
i have heard an awful lot about the homestead exemption . 
if this bill goes down , eight states and the district of columbia will continue to have an unlimited homestead exemption where corporate crooks can hide their assets from bankruptcy in a homestead and , once they get their discharge , sell that mansion and go off on their merry way . 
they want to keep that . 
our bill closes it . 
we have heard an awful lot about asset protection trusts that become the law in a number of states . 
page 506 of the bill contains a new section on fraudulent transfers and obligations that says that anybody who creates one of these trusts within 10 years of the date of filing can have that transfer voided if such a transfer was made to a self-settled trust or similar device , such transfer was made by the debtor , the debtor is the beneficiary of the trust or similar device , and the debtor made the transfer with actual intent to hinder , delay , or defraud any entity to which the debtor was or became , on or after the date such transfer was made , indebted . 
our bill closes those asset protection trusts . 
if the other side votes this bill down , they continue on and the blame for that is on their shoulders . 
we have heard an awful lot about medical bills . 
well , the people who are complaining about medical bills put a tin ear on to the testimony that has been submitted in this extensive hearing record . 
the united states trustees program , independent people who administer the bankruptcy code , collected data and made findings on medical debt . 
they drew a random sample and , of 5 , 203 debtors , 54 percent listed no medical debt . 
those that did , medical debt accounted for 5.5 percent of the total general unsecured debt ; 90.1 percent reported medical debts of less than $ 5 , 000 ; 1 percent of the cases accounted for 36.5 percent of the medical debt ; and less than 10 percent of all cases represented 80 percent of all reported medical debt . 
this is not the big problem that the people on the minority side have said it is . 
the data from the united states trustees proves this . 
finally , we have heard about debt that has been run up by service people who are on active duty , whether it is the permanent active duty military service or guard and reserve members who have been called up to active duty . 
in the last congress , the congress enacted the servicemembers civil relief act , public law 108-189 , which gives protection to people on active duty from collection of these debts by those that they have become indebted to , and this law puts a cap on interest at an annual rate of 6 percent on debts incurred prior to a person 's entry into active military duty service . 
mr. speaker , this is a good bill . 
it is not a perfect bill . 
it is a good bill , but it plugs a lot of loopholes that abuse has been generated under , and it does provide protection for medical debts and to our service people . 
let us not listen to the inaccurate statements that have been made by people who have been opposed to bankruptcy reform beginning 8 years ago , long before the military actions in iraq and afghanistan . 
let us give some protection to the people who pay their bills that they have agreed to from the hidden bankruptcy tax , and the way we do that is by passing this legislation . 
