Stephanie Tubbs Jones

Madam Speaker I rise today to celebrate the life of an icon in the

Eleventh Congressional District of Ohio, my friend Milton Grant.

Mr. Grant was the owner of Silk Screen Process Inc. for more than 50 years. He worked for the Cleveland Public Library, painted and was involved in many other business endeavors. I met Mr. Grant in 1981 in Cleveland when I ran for a Cleveland municipal judgeship. Mr. Grant was the owner of Silk Screen Process, Inc. I requested an estimate of the costs for the signs that I needed. This was my first run for public office and I had very little money. Mr. Grant, observing that I lacked the necessary funds to cover my order, extended credit to me. From that day forward he considered me part of the family and I knew that without the largess of Mr. Grant I would not have won that seat. I recently learned that I was not the only recipient of his kindness.

One day I realized that a friend of mine of many years, Margo Roth was Mr. Grant's daughter and that her sister, Paula had assisted me when I visited the business. I should have known that they were related to Mr. Grant, because they both exhibited the same caring and kindness.

Over the years I have celebrated graduations, weddings, births, homegoings, anniversaries, and successful elections with this wonderful Grant/Roth Family.

Mr. Grant was married to his wife Laura, who predeceased him in death for 61 years. He leaves to celebrate his life, a loving companion Roberta Silber, daughters Paula Rubinstein, Dr. Lee and Margo Roth, Bob, grandchildren, Michael Grant Jaffe, Karen Chaikin, Chip, Jennifer Jaffe Kaufman, Douglas, Julie Namy, Rob and 17 great grandchildren. His siblings, Ruth Buckland and Herman Goldstein and his grandson, Grant Roth, predeceased him.

Madam Speaker, I thank God for making Mr. Grant a part of my life and Mr. Grant for making me a part of his family. I ask all of my colleagues to join me in celebrating the wonderful 96 years of life of Mr. Milton Grant.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 527, I inadvertently missed this vote. I was delayed getting to the floor. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Subcommittee Chair Maxine Waters for your leadership in hosting a hearing in my congressional district.

Very quickly, I want to talk about the opportunity to simplify the Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit which is included in this bill, and I want to thank you because I have been working on that for years.

But I'm really having a problem here today because years ago, we were talking about expanding homeownership opportunity and we did it. But we didn't protect the people. So the predatory lenders got in there and they stole people's property. They stripped the equity from our neighborhoods so that there are senior women who own their homes outright that are now on the streets somewhere. They don't have a home. There are families who will not be able to pass that wealth from one generation to the next. Not only have we robbed this generation, we've robbed grandbabies and great-grandbabies.

So what I'm saying to you is we have an opportunity to fix it. We have an opportunity to take care of these folks that have been robbed.

I say we need to take advantage of the opportunity. Let's save some communities. Let's save public education, that understands that if we don't have a tax base, there's no money to go to a school; that understands if we don't have a tax base, cities can't collect garbage. They can't do what they need to do.

Come on. You understand what happened here. People got robbed, they got tripped, and it's now time for us to help them, just like we helped Bear Stearns and everybody else. Let's help the people.