HONORING THE LIFE OF HELEN DiGIROLAMO

  (Mr. FITZPATRICK asked and was given permission to address the House
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FITZPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, it is with profound sadness that I rise
today to honor the life and legacy of Helen DiGirolamo of Bensalem,
Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who we sadly lost on July 10, 2026, at the
age of 98.
  Born in Philadelphia in 1928, Helen was a cherished member of the St.
Ephrem Church in Bensalem for 55 years, where she rooted her life in
faith, in service, and in her community.
  In her younger years, she loved bowling. Throughout her life, she was
known for her exceptional cooking, especially during the holiday
gatherings with her family surrounding her at the table.
  Helen was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 45 years,
Eugene, and their daughter, Janice. She is survived by her children,
Gene and Joanne; her son-in-law, Michael; seven grandchildren; and 11
great-grandchildren.
  Mr. Speaker, her son, Gene, was so good to her in all of her years,
particularly her later years, when every single Sunday he dedicated to
spending time with her.
  Helen DiGirolamo will be deeply missed, but her spirit will live on
in the family and the community she so dearly loved.

                              {time}  1740
                            FAREWELL TO DOGE

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms.
Stansbury of New Mexico was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee
of the minority leader.)

                             General Leave

  Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from New Mexico?

  There was no objection.
  Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Speaker, we rise tonight to acknowledge that DOGE
is, indeed, dead.
  Mr. Speaker, the scandals, the gossip--when New Mexicans tune in to
see what is happening here in Washington, it feels like they are tuning
into an episode of a reality TV show rather than another day in the
people's House, but the messiest House isn't an overseas villa. It is
the White House.
  The President has a lot of messy friends and a lot of messy breakups,
but the biggest breakup of all was the breakup between President Trump
and Elon Musk 1 year ago.
  One day, Elon is sending a love letter of hundreds of millions in
campaign donations to the President's campaign, and the next, he is
wondering where it all went wrong. After all the insults, all of the
public arguing, and a very public divorce, today, we are here to say to
Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency: I am
so sorry, but you have not been chosen, and you will be dumped from the
villa.
  Now that the season of DOGE is over, it is time to look back and have
a reunion episode and answer the question on everyone's mind: Where did
it all go wrong? Was it all talk, or did Elon actually deliver on his
promises because when DOGE was created and Americans heard what they
were up to, there were some very big promises. He said that he could
save $2 trillion by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse across the Federal
Government.
  Well, the honeymoon is over, and I think the numbers say it all. He
didn't even save a fraction of that amount. In fact, what we know is
that due to disruptions in government services and firings and
litigation, he may have actually cost the Federal Government more money
than he saved.
  In fact, here is what we know about DOGE's impacts: Large-scale loss
of experienced Federal employees. Our agencies lost tens of thousands
of employees through layoffs, deferred resignations, early retirements
and hiring freezes.
  They reduced the institutional knowledge of generations across our
agencies and made it impossible to do basic functions that our
communities needed: Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and our
nuclear agencies who protect the nuclear and national security of this
country.
  They disrupted government services. Agencies were unable to process
basic functions. They attacked Social Security. They laid off thousands
of veterans across our Federal Government who had served this great
country and given their sacrifice in service, only to find themselves
eliminated by a cheap date in the West Wing.
  Legal challenges--we don't even know how many lawsuits there have
been in the wake of DOGE--personnel actions, agency restructuring,
illegal orders, withholding of funds, and many, many more that are
still awaiting to be adjudicated by the courts.
  Let us not forget that they stole your data. That is right. They came
in talking a big talk, saying that they were going to digitize our
Federal Government and modernize it and help us actually make the
government work for the people. It was a front for stealing your
personal data--your IRS data, your Social Security data, your bank
account data. They not only went into the most private systems of the
Federal Government and stole your data, but they exported it and gave
it to private companies.
  This is not just a run-of-the-mill exercise of modernizing the
government. They stole your data for a profit, for campaign
advancement, and to ensure that they would be able to continue to
access your data for power.
  In addition to that, they broke key aspects of our Federal
Government. They disrupted contracts. They gave themselves private
contracts. They gave away billions of dollars in Federal taxpayer
dollars for defense contracts to their friends, for NASA contracts for
their friends, for weather service contracts for their friends. They
disbanded decades of scientific research on every single continent
across this planet.
  The reductions in workforce not just impacted the functioning of the
Federal Government but disrupted local economies across the country,
especially in our rural communities.
  Let us not forget the most consequential impacts that we know came as
a result of Elon Musk's dangerous date with the White House, and that
is the dismantling of the USAID. We know that, as a direct result of
the dismantling of public health programs that have been in place
across the world for decades, that literally thousands of children
across the world died as a direct result.
  Medicine, food--they came in claiming that they were trying to cut
waste, and they left food for starving children to sit in warehouses
and rot while children did not have anything to eat.
  They let medicine expire in warehouses and actually threw it away
rather than give it to people for whom it would save their lives.
  What do they have to answer for it as they have come here to testify
before Congress? Is there any remorse for the lives that were lost? Is
there any remorse for the thousands of children whose lives were taken
because they could not access medicine? Is there any remorse for the
thousands of nonprofit organizations who serve our communities every
day who have been impacted? Is there any remorse for the hundreds of
thousands of Federal workers who they fired and whose lives they
disrupted?
  No. There is no remorse. And let me tell you this: This has been one
toxic relationship since the very beginning.

  So here is what we know. DOGE, you are voted off the island, and we
do not want to ever see you back here again.
  The American people want efficiency. The American people want a
government that serves them. The American people want to make sure that
their leaders care for the communities that they live in and will care
for them.
  The American people do not want toxic billionaires trying to steal
their taxpayer dollars and dismantling the basic services that keep
them well.
  So we bid good-bye to DOGE. We say farewell. We won't miss you. We
won't miss you as you leave the island and take your big exit.
  What we will say is that we will continue to fight every single day
for the American people. We will continue to actually work to make this
government work for the American people, to actually cut real waste and
real fraud and real abuse and the real abusers who are sitting in the
White House and committing waste, fraud, and abuse on the American
people every single day.
  We will commit that when we take back this House, when we take back
the White House, that we will fight for a nation that fights for our
people. We will bring a new deal to this country that serves the
working people of this country, that invests in housing and healthcare
and food, that protects the environment, that fights for climate
action, and that cares for the human dignity of our people.