October 3, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks E2227 

S. 3197 would exempt certain qualifying reserve component members of the Armed 

Services and National Guard members from 

the means test’s presumption of abuse. This 

bill responds to the fact that some who serve 

in the National Guard and the Reserves encounter financial difficulties and that they 

should not be subject to the additional proof 

requirements of the means test. 

Members of the armed services, National 

Guard, and reservists find themselves in a 

precarious economic situation. Before they are 

deployed they have stable employment and 

they expect a set amount of money. However, 

deployment brings with it change in livelihood 

and lifestyle. When a spouse is deployed, the 

spouse that remains behind must now work, 

find baby sitters, and are subject to a myriad 

of life-altering financial changes. Sometimes 

houses have to be sold and deployment can 

cause all sorts of financial hardships. Simply 

put, the armed services, National Guard, and 

reservists should not be penalized. 

I cosponsored the House version of this bill 

H.R. 4044, and I urge my colleagues to support it. This bill makes sense because often 

armed services personnel and reservists receive high compensation when they are away 

on hazardous tours or combat zones. However, when these individuals return, their income is not as high. Therefore, it is unfair to 

subject these individuals to the means test. 

Simply, the means test is whether the person 

has the means to pay his or her debts. Hazard 

pay and temporary high pay for combat work 

is not necessarily a good indicator of person’s 

means or ability to pay. These individuals are 

serving our country and have legitimate financial concerns. I do not believe that they should 

be penalized. I believe we should help our 

armed services personnel for giving so much 

to fight for and protect this country. The least 

we can do is help them. 

I firmly believe that we should celebrate our 

National Guard and reservists, and I remain 

committed, as a Member of Congress, to ensuring that we demonstrate our respect for 

them. The National Guard and reservists have 

kept their promise to serve our Nation; they 

have willingly risked their lives to protect the 

country we all love. 

As the great British leader Winston Churchill 

famously stated, ‘‘Never in the field of human 

conflict was so much owed by so many to so 

few.’’ 

We must always remember the debt that we 

owe our National Guard and reservists that 

are willing to lie down their lives for us and 

render the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom 

and security. Our gratitude must continue to 

be unwavering. 

In the words of President John F. Kennedy, 

‘‘As we express our gratitude, we must never 

forget that the highest appreciation is not to 

utter words, but to live by them.’’ It is not simply enough to sing the praises of our Nation’s 

great veterans; I firmly believe that we must 

demonstrate by our actions how proud we are 

of our American heroes. 

I urge my colleagues to support this bill. 

MANUFACTURERS KNOW ALL 

ABOUT ECONOMIC COLLAPSE 

HON. FRANK R. WOLF OF VIRGINIA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Friday, October 3, 2008 

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I want to share 

with our colleagues a commentary from the recent edition of Manufacturing & Technology 

News by its editor Richard McCormack. He 

writes that manufacturers in this country know 

about economic collapse because that sector 

of our economy has been on the downward 

slide for years and that their experience 

should be a lesson for this Nation’s leaders 

who are trying to find a way to turn around the 

economy. His article follows: 

[FROM THE MANUFACTURING & TECHNOLOGY

NEWS, SEPT. 30, 2008] 

COMMENTARY: MANUFACTURERS KNOW ALL

ABOUT ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

(By Richard McCormack) 

It is sad what has happened to the United 

States. 

For years, as editor of Manufacturing & 

Technology News, I have heard dozens of domestic manufacturing company CEOs talk 

about an impending ‘‘collapse’’ of the U.S. 

economy. These were the men who were in 

the unenviable position of having to close 

their companies or shut down factories and 

watch as most all of their competitors did 

the same thing. 

These were the men who implemented Six 

Sigma, lean, ISO 9000, and the Baldrige National Quality and Shingo Prize criteria. 

They were leaders who agonized over having 

to move the world’s most efficient production capacity from the United States to Mexico and China in order to stay in business, 

because no matter how good they were, it 

wasn’t good enough to survive. They could 

compete with other companies, but they 

could not compete against other COUNTRIES—countries that cheated in every way 

imaginable. 

These manufacturing company CEOs were 

men who loved their employees. Who grew up 

with their employees. Who knew their families. Who knew in their hearts the economic, 

cultural, moral and physical destruction 

that was being wrought upon their communities. 

U.S. manufacturing company CEOs died 

many deaths, watching as Wall Street mavericks and their economic ideological apologists in the U.S. federal government, in Congress and their high-paid agents in Washington, D.C., forced hundreds of thousands of 

dedicated, hard-working Americans into the 

street, to fend for themselves in a game that 

was rigged against them. 

Has the financial class driven through the 

heartland of America lately? Have they not 

taken AMTRAK between New York City and 

Washington, D.C., passing through the industrial back lots of Baltimore, Wilmington, 

Philadelphia, Trenton and Newark? Have 

they not seen an American landscape 

stretching for thousands of square miles that 

looks like it has been bombed out? 

There are places in America that are 

‘‘healthy,’’ but these places are even worse: 

shopping and strip malls located on the 

edges of America’s deteriorating towns and 

cities, lined with vast parking lots and national chain stores: Applebees, Home Depot, 

Wal-Mart, Wendy’s, Days Inn, Outback 

Steak House. They are soul-less places— 

‘‘Anywhere USA’’—as depressing as the 

crumbling inner city cores of hundreds of 

American cities and towns. This is what has 

become of America. Wall Street had a lot to 

do with this. As part of the financial bailout 

bill, they needed to include a provision on 

teaching ethics and civics. 

The heroic men running companies that 

made durable goods wept on the phone when 

I called to ask about why they closed their 

factory after it had been in operation for 80 

years or more. 

These people were not selling financial 

paper or making products that were obsolete 

and no longer in demand, like buggy whips. 

And yet when I speak with economists about 

manufacturing, they invariably rationalize 

the loss of America’s wealth-generating sector by claiming the companies that are 

dying are making ‘‘buggy whips.’’ It is wrong 

and it is infuriating. We’re talking about the 

United States economy, which has just suffered a massive financial heart attack. 

I remember writing about the manufacturing job situation in early 2004. It was the 

35th consecutive month of manufacturing 

employment layoffs, with the latest BLS figure coming in at 135,000 production workers 

being told to go home and not ever come 

back. This was a crisis. I wondered why in 

the hell not a single person in the Bush administration and only a handful of people in 

Congress cared about the collapse of the 

wealth-generating sector of the American 

economy. As is happening with the financial 

sector today, manufacturing five years ago 

was being disassembled in front of their eyes. 

There were no bailouts—manufacturers 

weren’t looking for them—there weren’t 

even bromides. 

I remember thinking as Bush invaded Iraq 

that it was America’s last great hurrah. As 

America’s military hardware was being 

shipped to the Middle East, America’s industrial base was being shipped in the opposite 

direction to China. The war was happening 

at the same time that ‘‘outsourcing’’ became 

a big story in the media. But the business 

press got bored and started covering the incredible run-up of housing prices. ‘‘Whoopee,’’ said all the journalists and economists. 

‘‘Who needs industry when we’ve got finance 

and housing!’’ 

But the manufacturing industry’s plight 

continued. I wanted to rename my publication ‘‘One Outrage After Another.’’ I was 

constantly questioning whether I should continue writing all the stories of companies 

dying, of industries leaving, of workers being 

laid off, of trade deficits skyrocketing, of 

China cheating, of the perverse reaction 

among Washington elites to rationalize the 

destruction. I wondered if I was the problem. 

If being Irish meant fixating on the negative. 

But I had covered manufacturing through 

the 1990s, and the story wasn’t depressing. I 

even wrote a book about U.S. companies’ 

adoption of the Toyota Production System 

and lean manufacturing and the good it was 

doing. It was not me. It was the story that 

could not be ignored. 

I got to know other people who couldn’t 

sleep at night fretting over what was happening to the United States industrial base. 

These were patriotic people who started to 

coalesce around these issues, who were utterly perplexed by the federal government’s 

total unwillingness to act on behalf of American producers and their workers. 

The government knew what was going on. 

But its political appointees made nonsensical ideological arguments concerning ‘‘free 

trade’’ and ‘‘free markets.’’ ‘‘We’ve got a war 

going on, we can’t support U.S. manufacturing’’ was a refrain I heard over and again 

by political appointees at the ‘‘Commerce’’ 

Department and White House. 

Manufacturers weren’t looking for a hand 

out or a bailout. They only wanted one 

thing: for the United States government to 

put the interests of American producers 


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E2228 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks October 3, 2008 

above the interests of foreign countries, foreign producers, importers and the multinational companies that were taking advantage of mercantilist practices in China. 

American manufacturers wanted the U.S. 

government to put the interests of American 

producers ahead of the law firms representing foreign shipping companies, the 

lobbyists representing Wall Street and, 

again, the multinational companies that 

were swimming in record profits by sending 

their production offshore; all while the critical manufacturing sector was left for dead. 

‘‘Good riddance,’’ said the financial elite and 

its power structure: ‘‘those jobs sucked anyway.’’ 

Those same free-market, capitalist, antigovernment, anti-regulation ideological zealots are now begging—demanding—that taxpayers give them a trillion dollars for destroying the American economy. 

I never once reported about the dire warnings of an economic meltdown—about the inevitable financial catastrophe being caused 

by the asymmetrical global trade imbalances 

that were mounting by the day. I had my 

own 401k to worry about along with three 

older children, and I was not going to be a 

reporter who stoked the possibility of economic Armageddon. 

I guess I was wrong. I guess I should have 

been reporting on the impending collapse because President George Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve 

Chairman Ben Bernanke sure haven’t had 

any such reservations about scaring the 

bejesus out of us. 

What strikes me as particularly sad, however, is the clear FACT that in all of the discussion about bailing out the financiers and 

their agents who killed the American economy, there has not been one mention of the 

real reason for America’s collapse, nor of 

what is needed to start the long process of 

restoring the country back to some semblance of economic health. 

The housing bubble and sub-prime loans 

are only part of the problem. 

The real culprit is the fact that almost everything Americans buy is made somewhere 

else. The country continues to ship all of its 

wealth overseas. Did the economic policy 

makers not watch the opening ceremony of 

the Olympic Games in Beijing? Have they 

not seen the 200–story skyscrapers going up 

in Dubai? 

The core of America’s economic problems 

stem from the trade deficit and the elimination of tens of thousands of factories and 

millions of jobs that were creating the 

wealth the country needed to pay for everything. Without that wealth, the financial 

sector invented playthings and the nation 

borrowed until it could borrow no more. 

Oh, but wait! The answer to the problem is 

to borrow more to bailout the people who 

over borrowed. The Paulson proposal, unexpectedly defeated on Monday September 29 

in a harrowing live television broadcast, was 

to allow the U.S. government to payoff bad 

debts by going deeper into debt. It did not sit 

well with anybody. 

September 29, 2008, will be an important 

day in the history of the American Republic. 

It is the day the American era ended. Watching the live pictures on CNBC of the traders 

in the pits watching the television monitors 

above their heads as the vote on the House 

floor was tallied was like watching New 

Yorkers standing in horror as they watched 

the burning World Trade Center towers in 

2001. The congressional vote count was simulcast with the Dow, and they were crashing in unison. There was shock in the eyes of 

the traders, and a panic among the CNBC 

broadcasters, who couldn’t believe what they 

were witnessing. These men and women are 

consummate professionals and are not prone 

to panic. But there they were barking out: 

‘‘What’s happening with gold?’’ ‘‘Look at the 

oil markets!’’ The market did what the towers did and what our President predicted: it 

collapsed. For the second time in seven 

years, the energy was visibly drained out of 

Lower Manhattan and the country at large, 

as it realized a scary new era had begun. 

Yet, there is still NOT ONE mention from 

anyone in power—especially not the two 

presidential candidates, nor of a single congressional leader—of what is really needed to 

bailout the United States. 

The only way out of this mess is for the 

United States do everything it can to make 

the country what it was until 30 years ago: a 

nation that valued manufacturing. 

The U.S. economy long ago collapsed 

around domestic manufacturers. Now it’s 

collapsing around the financial wizards who 

either forget or didn’t know that their livelihoods depended on a robust industry and 

workers making livable wages. 

As someone who works in Washington, attends press conferences, government meetings, congressional hearings and who asks 

questions of the power elite, I can assure you 

from first-hand experience that the United 

States government did not do a single 

thing—nothing—to re-set the global ground 

rules to allow U.S. industry and its millions 

of workers to be competitive. In fact, all the 

rules were changed to favor the foreign and 

financial interests. The country is now paying the real price of saving a few bucks at 

Wal-Mart. 

The United States government and its 

elected reprsentatives long ago stopped representing the interests of American workers 

and American producers. If there is any silver lining in the historic House vote on the 

Bailout Plan on September 29, it is that 

maybe Congress has woken up to the power 

of the people. Unfortunately it was the 

wrong time to wake up. ‘‘The people’’ must 

now pay the consequences of their elected 

representative’s somnambulance. They must 

now prepare to confront the ‘‘dire’’ consequences caused by decades of Wall Street’s 

short-term focus on quarterly profits at the 

exclusion of everything else. 

The country has a lot to learn from American manufacturers and their workers, and it 

will not like what’s coming one bit. 

f 

IN RECOGNITION OF GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF GREATER NEW 

YORK AND NORTHERN NEW JERSEY ON THE OCCASION OF ITS 

COMMUNITY CONNECT ACTION 

DAY 

HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY OF NEW YORK

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Friday, October 3, 2008 

Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Madam 

Speaker, I ask that my distinguished colleagues in this House join me in saluting 

Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and 

Northern New Jersey. This outstanding institution has proudly and effectively served residents with disabilities and disadvantages living 

in the New York City metropolitan area since 

its founding in Brooklyn in 1915. Throughout 

its illustrious history, Goodwill Industries has 

carried out its critical mission, which is to ‘‘enhance the quality and dignity of life for individuals, families and communities.’’ 

Last year, Goodwill Industries of Greater 

New York and Northern New Jersey provided 

services to more than 120,000 people, placing 

13,000 in jobs. Over the course of the last five 

years, it helped to connect 53,000 persons 

with employment opportunities. In 2007, it 

served more than 9,500 persons with disabilities, and placed almost 2,800 of them in jobs. 

Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and 

Northern New Jersey employs more than 

1,800 people with disabilities, and its youth 

programs provide education, recreation and 

enrichment to 9,400 children and their families. And, as the Member of Congress representing the neighborhood of Astoria in the 

Borough of Queens, I am proud of Goodwill 

Industries’ long-term commitment to serve the 

Two Coves community of Astoria, where its 

headquarters are located. 

This year, the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company is celebrating its 150th anniversary by supporting family-strengthening 

initiatives across the nation. Northwestern Mutual is working in tandem with Goodwill Industries International to achieve this laudable 

goal. With 184 member and affiliate Goodwill 

agencies around the world serving 1.1 million 

individuals and placing 140,000 in employment, the program promises to be an outstanding success. 

This month, Goodwill Industries of Greater 

New York and Northern New Jersey and the 

Northwestern Mutual Foundation are co-sponsoring a Community Connect Action Fair at 

Lighthouse Park on Roosevelt Island in New 

York City to help connect New York families 

with employment and community resources 

while providing healthy, entertaining activities 

for children and adults alike. 

Madam Speaker, I ask that my distinguished 

colleagues rise to join me in saluting the tremendous contributions of Goodwill Industries 

of Greater New York and Northern New Jersey to the civic good of the communities it 

serves, and to recognize the vital support for 

those efforts provided by the Northwestern 

Mutual Life Insurance Company and its Northwestern Mutual Foundation. All Americans 

owe these great institutions a debt of gratitude 

for their selfless and compassionate efforts to 

serve others. 

f 

HONORING THE 33RD ANNIVERSARY OF BISHOP GEORGE W. 

BROOKS 

HON. MELVIN L. WATT OF NORTH CAROLINA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Friday, October 3, 2008 

Mr. WATT. Madam Speaker, I am pleased 

today to recognize the 33rd anniversary of 

Bishop George W. Brooks as Senior Pastor 

and Chief Elder of Mount Zion Baptist Church 

in Greensboro, NC. 

Since becoming the pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 1975, Bishop Brooks has proven 

to be an inspirational leader in Greensboro, 

our nation and around the world. 

Under his leadership, the Mt. Zion Baptist 

Church has flourished from 35 members in 

1975 to over 5,000, and 42 ministries that 

work to address some of the fundamental 

needs of its congregation, the Greensboro 

community and people abroad. Examples of 

these ministries include daycare and afterschool programs that serve 200 children daily, 

homeless outreach, health and wellness care 

and the One In Christ Bible College. Internationally, Bishop Brooks and his congregation have established churches and schools in 


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