On the recordOctober 12, 2011
I continue to reserve the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Washington has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Michigan has 13\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker and Members of the House, I think it's important that we are passing this TAA today. But it is just the tip of the iceberg of the problems faced by workers in this country. I think that we are picking one group and saying, well, if you can qualify for having lost your job because of international trade adjustment of one sort or another, you're eligible for some benefits. But I think that in the much larger sense the House faces a problem. We're seeing it in the streets. We're seeing it on Wall Street. We're seeing it on my Central Plaza. We're seeing it here in Washington, DC. We're seeing it in Atlanta. The workers of this country are very upset, and there's a long agenda that is sort of dealt with here for one small group of workers that ought to be available for all workers. Now, we're going to have to extend unemployment benefits at the end of this year unless, like last year, at Christmastime, we'll be saying to people, You know what? We don't care about you; you're done. We haven't extended unemployment benefits. We ought to be doing it right now. It will be caught in the crush of all what happens at the end of the year, but it needs to happen. Foreclosure relief.…
