"....but I would only add it wasn't courts that have under the new law decided these people can't get a discharge, its congress and potus"
There is always judicial discretion, is there not? There is a judgement call - does a case fall within the 20% that should be forced in to Chap 13 (not my statistic, but I can't provide a citation), or does it not? This law hardly ELIMINATES Chap 7, just provides another standard of hardship to get to Chap 7, from my non-legal reading of it's implications.
The basket-cases will still get debts discharged via Chap 7.
It seems like you are assigning a greater impact to the relatively few cases that get tossed to Chap 13 than may be warranted, unless I am missing something.
Under the new law there is almost zero judicial discretion, if a debtor is above the IRS median income statistic they have to do a Ch 13. In my experience any middle class household with two full time working adults will exceed this number. The $100 a month affordability standard is a misnomer because it is not based on actual expenses of the debtor but rather on another IRS expense statistic that in my experience does not reflect people's actual living expenses, particularly housing in light of the recent housing boom (bubble). These people are the ones heading for Ch 13.
A single lower middle class wage earner would likely still be able to file a 7.
I do not think I am putting too much weight on these dual wage earning middle class families being forced into Ch 13.