Our Congressman Brad Miller

It is always a treat to hear from Congressman Miller and tonight he sent out an email entitled, "I've Been Working. Honest." Although he took a little break from emailing updates to all his constituents after the elections, he wants us to know that he's been on the front lines working for us all.

Although most of the banking and securities industry denied for the longest time that there was anything to worry about, we've known for a couple of years that we would have a bad problem with foreclosures. I introduced legislation a year and a half ago to close a special interest loophole in the bankruptcy law that exempted home mortgages from court modification. Home mortgages are the only kind of debt that a bankruptcy court can't touch. Closing that loophole is now part of the Obama Administration's plan to address the foreclosure crisis.

BlueNCer's know that Brad has been working hard because Betsy has been keeping us updated on his good works. Even with his busy schedule Congressman Miller took an hour to liveblog here at BlueNC and shares this link covering that session in his email.

Currently, Cong. Miller and Bill Delahunt (D-MA) are working on legislation to protect the consumer....

Bill Delahunt and I will also introduce legislation this week to create a new regulatory agency specifically to protect consumers from abusive financial products-mortgages, credit cards, whatever. Bill is a Democrat from Massachusetts. We've both worked on the issue, so we'll probably flip a coin to decide if the bill is "Miller-Delahunt" or "Delahunt-Miller."

In Februay, Cong. Miller penned an interesting diary published on DailyKos, "Are We Going To Buy The Bezzle?" If you haven't read it yet, take the time now as he simplifies the complicated mess of "Troubled Assets".

Lenders are quick to say that they have every right to full payment, that they don’t have to agree to modify mortgages. The savings and loan had every right not to settle their lawsuit, to let a court decide their claim against the bank. But refusing to do what makes obvious economic sense is suspicious. If lenders agreed to modify a mortgage to reduce the principal, they would have to change how they value the mortgage as an asset. How do lenders value a modified mortgage that does not reduce the principal, but that is destined for default?

John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that embezzlement is "the most interesting of crimes" for an economist. Embezzlement is almost always eventually discovered, but for a time results in "a net increase in psychic wealth," when the embezzler "has his gain" and the victim doesn’t miss it. Galbraith called the undiscovered and therefore unfelt loss "the bezzle."

He ends his "Update" email with this happy news...

Finally, I am serving again as Chair of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the Science and Technology Committee.

Brad has been fighting for science during the last 8 years of the Bush mis-Administration and sometimes seemed to be our only warrior in this battle. Thankfully for us he continues the good fight...

And we've already had some new business-here's an AP article that appeared in the Boston Globe on our hearing about a federal agency that is charged with performing health assessments for environmental exposures. Critics think the agency has been too eager to please those in government and industry that want to minimize the health effects of environmental exposures.

North Carolina Progressives are lucky to have this kind of representation and should try to support him in every way they can. If you can't send a donation, contact him and let him know what a fine job he is doing.