Wealth & Money Quote by Russ Feingold

Feingold’s questions aren’t requests for information; they’re a trapdoor. By asking “What is the harm,” he frames opposition as indefensible before anyone has even answered. It’s a classic legislative move: convert a messy policy dispute into a moral referendum, where the only acceptable position is “the right thing.” The rhetoric borrows from kitchen-table ethics, not parliamentary procedure, which is precisely the point. He’s trying to yank the debate out of technical weeds and back into public-readable terms: responsibility, fairness, basic competence.

The phrase “doing our job as legislators” is doing double duty. On the surface it’s civics 101, a reminder of duty. Underneath it’s an accusation that someone else in the room is shirking that duty, rushing a bill, or letting lobbyist-crafted language slide through unexamined. Feingold often positioned himself as the Senate’s designated skunk at the picnic, and this kind of line telegraphs that posture: lonely integrity versus a complacent machine.

Then he gets specific: “the entire bankruptcy community.” That’s insider language deployed for populist effect. He’s signaling he’s listened to practitioners and understands downstream fallout, while also suggesting the provisions are so incoherent that even the professionals who must live with them can’t make sense of them. “Stick” sharpens it into an image of unfair burden-shifting: lawmakers offloading costs onto courts, trustees, creditors, debtors - anyone who will have to clean up the consequences.

Contextually, this lands in an era when bankruptcy reform fights often hinged on whether Congress was protecting families in distress or tightening the screws in ways that mainly served creditors. Feingold’s subtext is blunt: if these provisions “do not make any sense,” passing them isn’t compromise - it’s negligence dressed up as governance.