You tell me why people shouldn't pay for their own obligations.
Yes, some people do need charity. But they should get only the charity we are willing to provide, not all of the charity they want. That's what they are doing by running up credit card bills and then defaulting.
I suppose your question to me really boils down to why should debt discharges or asset exemptions exist at all. In my mind charity really should have nothing to do with it. Rather the real reason is macroeconomic benefit to the country.
Under the current system, when debtors reach the point of insolvency where the amount of the unsecured debt principle cannot be paid off from the disposable income of the debtor within a reasonable period of time or ever (because of accruing default rate interest, fees, and penalties) they can file a Chapter 7. The essential deal in a Chapter 7 is that the Chapter 7 trustee takes all of the debtors non-exempt assets and liquidates them for the benefit of creditors and the debtor gets a discharge of debt.
If we had no such thing as a discharge there really would be no point in federal bankruptcy law and state collection laws would prevail. That debtor would be wage garnished in perpetuity and the creditor that was the fastest with the wage garnishment would be preferred over other creditors and a race to the courthouse would ensue. The creditors' legal transaction costs would be added to debt and in the race to the courthouse scenario, the increased collective transaction would eat up (and likely exceed) the wage garnishment proceeds.
If you eliminate asset exemptions, all the debtors assets could be attached and sold by creditors to pay debts. You have the same race to the courthouse issues and increased transaction costs. And you would have a debtor perpetually in debt without any assets and unable to function effectively in the American economy or society.
I submit that the existing Ch 7 deal with exemptions I outlined above (what is known as the "fresh start") is better for the American economy as a whole than the alternative where we would get hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of perpetually dysfunctional participants in the economy.
With respect to paying obligations, you don't have a choice (its not a matter of should or shouldn't), you have to pay your obligation per the contract for debt you entered into with the CC lender or will be sued and the cycle I describe above occurs. Note that when all the contracts for debt were entered into by CC lenders and debtors over the past 11 years (the last code overhaul) the existing Bankruptcy Code and exemption laws, pro and con for lenders and debtors, were defacto incorporated into those contracts. The CC lenders entered into these contracts for debt under these terms. Now, after the fact, after the contract has aleady been entered into, they want to rewrite those terms dramatically in their favor.
The responsive question to you would then be, why shouldn't CC lenders honor the obligations they entered into when they entered into the loan agreement with the debtors which included the then prevailing bankruptcy code and exemption laws?
I have used some space with this post because these aren't facile, knee-jerk issues, contrary to what the Frist/Biden rhetoric would have you believe.
Oh and by the way I just shouldn't just pick on Frist/Biden. Grassley says the most stupid things about this issue I have heard from anyone.