I heard a radio ad the other day that got me all worked up -- and it wasn't even about an elected official. It was about debt, credit card debt, the kind that doesn't hurt until it buries you.

In this ad, a debt settlement company offered to chop credit card debt by as much as 60 percent -- not through renegotiating a high interest rate but by reducing what was owed. Don't give the bank your hard-earned money, the huckster said. It belongs to you.

Oh, sure, I thought. And the bank forced you to wear the clothes and eat the restaurant meals and enjoy the Club Med vacation charged on the plastic bearing your poor fool name. I gritted my teeth and clicked to another channel.

Credit cards -- and their onerous interest rates and unfair practices -- have been in the news lately. Washington has been hard at work passing a much-needed credit card bill of rights that would put restrictions on an industry known more for its fiduciary fickleness than for its transparency.

Among the changes: prohibiting companies from raising interest rates on existing balances in certain cases, requiring advance notification of rate increases, and forcing card-issuers to spell out their terms in plain English. Backers say it will save families thousands of dollars a year.

Charge me skeptical.

Not that reform wasn't needed. Many credit card companies are just a billing cycle short of sleazy. Their fine print is written in gobbledygook and their marketing techniques, particularly to young people, border on the criminal.

But -- but.

Let's be frank here. In an embarrassing number of cases, cardholders blithely rack up charges without a thought to payment. Consumer plastic has become the perfect dance partner to our irrepressible need for instant gratification. I want it, I buy it, and some day I may pay for it.

The soul-searching question do I have enough money? doesn't always enter a purchase equation. Unlike that old-style method of layaway so popular during my childhood, charging gets you the coveted item NOW, not when you've finished paying for it.

Of course not everybody lives beyond their means. Almost half of all Americans -- your trusty scribe included -- pay off their credit cards every month. (See, I hold dear this antiquated and slightly ridiculous notion that you shouldn't buy what you can't afford. Silly me.) And in these trying economic times, the unemployed and underemployed have stayed afloat on plastic.

This is not about them, though. This is about living high on the hog without thinking about forking over the bacon.

As consumers we owe nearly $1 trillion in consumer credit, and card debt has increased by 25 percent in the last decade. Granted, penalty fees are ridiculous, and about one-fifth of those carrying debt pay 20 percent in interest, surely loan shark-level rates. Nevertheless, we must bear responsibility for irresponsible spending and short-sighted decisions.

We love the teaser rates but don't check how much it will cost us when the teaser turns serious. Thinking we're immune, we don't bother to ask about late fees or penalty rates either, perhaps believing those oh-so-sweet accommodating card-issuers are on our side. Yeah, and can you spell usury?

No wonder bankers flood our mailboxes with offers, even sending mail to our elementary school children who obviously have no income. They subscribe to the con-man's adage: There's a sucker born every minute.

Sure, our new bill of rights will clarify how much it really costs to use a credit card, but first we have to exercise the willpower to keep the dang thing in our wallet.

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