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There are bad ideas to address the mortgage meltdown, and then there are ideas so awful that they even have Democrats rebelling against their powerful House chairmen.

Such is the case with the mortgage bankruptcy bill passed yesterday by John Conyers's House Judiciary Committee. We warned in October about this legislation, which would allow bankruptcy judges to treat mortgage debt the same as credit-card debt. It sounds like a great idea to troubled borrowers, because judges could then reduce the amount that a borrower owes on a mortgage -- while letting the owner keep the property.

It's less great for ...