Yo Congress!

In its August decision in In re Ransom, the 9th Circuit has ruled that a debtor may not deduct on the means test, an automobile "ownership" cost, i.e., use the IRS ownership table, for an automobile he owns free and clear.  I love the last paragraph of the opinion:

“The ‘correct’ answer to the question before us, which the courts have been struggling with for years—at the unnecessary cost of thousands of hours of valuable judicial time— depends ultimately not upon our interpretation of the statute, but upon what Congress wants the answer to be.  We would hope, in this regard, that we the judiciary would be relieved of this Sisyphean adventure by legislation clearly answering a straightforward policy question: shall an above-median income debtor in chapter 13 be allowed to shelter from unsecured creditors a standardized vehicle ownership cost for a vehicle owned free and clear, or not?  Because resolution of this issue rests with Congress, we have taken the unusual step of directing the Clerk of the Court to forward a copy of this opinion to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.”