A single illness or a student loan could follow you for life, because the law made some debts nearly impossible to escape. This statute restores the promise of a fresh start: student and medical debt can be discharged, you keep the essentials of a dignified life, no one is jailed for being broke, and workers are paid before owners and insiders.
Student loans were made nearly impossible to discharge, trapping people for decades under an "undue hardship" test almost no one could meet.Check it
A single serious illness could bury a family in medical debt — reported to credit agencies, chased by aggressive collectors, punishing you for having been sick.Check it
People were still jailed, in practice, for being unable to pay fines and fees — debtors' prison by another name.Check it
And when a company failed, owners and insiders could be made whole while workers lost the wages and pensions they'd already earned.Check it
A company that caused mass harm — tainted products, poisoned water, a deadly device — could dodge the bill by splitting in two. The liability went into one shell that promptly filed for bankruptcy; the wealth and the ongoing business stayed safe in the other. Victims lined up behind a bankrupt shell while the profitable company walked away. The trick even had a nickname: the “Texas Two-Step.”
Student loans — public and private — are dischargeable on the same terms as any other debt. The "undue hardship" trap is abolished.
Medical debt is dischargeable and can't be used to punish you for having been ill; reporting and aggressive collection are restricted.
No one may be imprisoned for inability to pay a debt, fine, or fee. Inability to pay is never contempt.
Workers' earned wages and pensions come before owners and insiders — and money funneled to insiders on the way down can be clawed back.
Now the harm and the money can’t be pried apart. Liability for fraud or for violating people’s rights can’t be erased in bankruptcy, the split-and-bankrupt maneuver is void against the people harmed, and the assets stay reachable wherever they’re moved — while a business that simply failed honestly keeps its fresh start. (CS-33 Fight 7; Article Thirty-One §§5, 8.)
Means tests, filing hurdles, and fees were calibrated to deter and delay honest people from ever obtaining relief.Check it
The process must be accessible and affordable. Barriers may only separate genuine ability to pay from genuine inability — measured against a dignified subsistence, not a creditor's preferred standard. Fees can't put relief out of reach; waivers exist for those who can't pay.
Education debt was singled out as nearly unforgivable; medical debt wrecked credit and invited relentless collection.Check it
No category of a person's debt may be made unforgivable in a way that defeats the fresh start. Student loans discharge like any debt; medical debt discharges and can't be reported to punish illness. Fraud, child support, and victim restitution are treated distinctly — relieving those isn't the point.
Relief could leave a person destitute — stripped of home, tools, transportation, even retirement savings.Check it
You keep the essentials of a dignified life: basic subsistence, a modest home or rental protection, household goods, a vehicle for work or family, the tools and credentials of your trade, and your pension and retirement — fully protected. No one is left destitute as the price of relief.
Courts jailed people for nonpayment without ever asking whether they actually could pay.Check it
No imprisonment for inability to pay a debt, fine, fee, or judgment. A court can't jail for nonpayment without finding, on the record, genuine ability to pay and willful refusal. Garnishment and seizure are limited so they can't strip the dignity floor.
Insiders and owners could be paid while the workers who earned wages and pensions were left with nothing.Check it
Workers' earned wages and pensions take priority over owners and insiders, and transfers funneled to insiders before the collapse can be clawed back for the people who were owed.
This is the plain-language version. The binding text is CS-33, which implements Article Three, Section 7 and Article Thirty-One of the Constitution.
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