EXCERPT...
This time freshman Senator Hillary Clinton voted in favor of the bill.
Had the bill been transformed to get rid of all those awful provisions that had so concerned First Lady Hillary Clinton? No. The bill was essentially the same, but Hillary Rodham Clinton was not. As First Lady, Mrs. Clinton had been persuaded that the bill was bad for families, and she was willing to fight for her beliefs. Her husband was a lame duck at the time he vetoed the bill; he could afford to forgo future campaign contributions. As New York's newest senator, however, it seems that Hillary Clinton could not afford such a principled position. Campaigns cost money, and that money wasn't coming from families in financial trouble. Senator Clinton received $140,000 in campaign contributions from banking industry executives in a single year, making her one of the top two recipients in the Senate. Big banks were now part of Senator Clinton's constituency. She wanted their support, and they wanted hers -- including a vote in favor of "that awful bill."
(Update - Nov. 2005: On October 17, 2005 the new federal bankruptcy law went into effect making it much more difficult to erase credit card debt by filing for bankruptcy. Regulators are also requiring credit card companies to raise minimum payments for bank-issued cards by January 2006.)
-- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/more/cement.html
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