"When you have seen a system that has gone from a few hundred thousand cases to 1.5 million last year — most of that increase during the fat years of the Clinton administration — you must conclude something is not right," said Edith H. Jones, a federal appellate court judge in Houston who served on a blue-ribbon panel to review bankruptcy law in the 1990s and is widely believed to be seen as on President Bush's short list for a position on the Supreme Court.

Sadly, No! The lowest bankruptcy year under Bush is higher than the highest one under Clinton.

The Not So Honorable possible Supreme Court Justice doesn't take into account the distribution of the "fat" and who has to file bankruptcy. Interestingly enough, the only years bankruptcy applications have gone down in the cited chart are the two years after the minimum wage was raised.

The data suggests that if Congress really wants to fight bankruptcy then they should raise the minimum wage.