Democrats Encouraged Bankruptcy, For A Good Reason
From the late Ronald Reagan:
Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.
This ties in with the popular perception in baby seal clubber land that Republicans are fiscally responsible, and Democrats are reckless spenders.
In a corollary, Democrats would encourage people to file for bankruptcy.
Well, actually they did, in the early 19th century. Andrew Jackson did it. But in retrospect, he had some good reasons for doing so:
In the 1820s Andrew Jackson came up with a brilliant plan to encourage development in the United States of America. The plan was to created the idea of legal bankruptcy were one could wipe some of your debt clean if you found yourself in way over your head. The idea was to do away with debtor’s prisons and allow people to climb out of the hole of impossible debt. Before this idea was introduced people were routinely sent to prison for years on debts as small as $100.00.
With such a possibility looming over your head, was it any wonder that people were reluctant to borrow money. The only people that wanted to borrow money were the ones who could pay it back. Or, in other words, the people who had assets would borrow money and those who had no assets would not.
So are debtors' prisons gone? Pretty much, according to Nolo:
Debtors' prisons were eliminated in the United States by 1850. In a few unusual situations, however, you can still be jailed if you:
- willfully violate a court order, especially an order to pay child support
- are convicted of willfully refusing to pay income taxes, or
- are about to conceal yourself or your property to avoid paying a debt for which a creditor has a judgment against you.
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