[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 150 (Monday, September 15, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H4271-H4272]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               CONDOLENCES TO THE FAMILY OF CHARLIE KIRK

  (Mr. Larson of Connecticut was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, first and foremost, I rise 
today with our deepest condolences for the family of Charlie Kirk.
  Violence of any kind, especially violence that we have seen in this 
country way too often, should never be condoned. Whether it is the Kirk 
family or the families of the kids who were shot in Colorado, it is 
gut-wrenching and sorrowful that our Nation continues to go through 
this plague of gun violence.
  Madam Speaker, it has been 13 years since Sandy Hook in my home State 
of Connecticut. It is long overdue for Congress to have a vote. 
Universal background checks are a commonsense way that we can deal with 
this, and I see no reason why we can't pass this as a Congress. 
Frankly, I believe that we should ban assault weapons, as well.
  Hopefully, people in this body will come to their senses and have 
Congress take a vote, at a minimum, for the families who were impacted 
and for our future. That is all that is required of us.
  Again, our hearts go out to the Kirk family and, certainly, the 
families of the students at Evergreen High School in Colorado.


                      Demanding Answers from DOGE

  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I rise this morning because 
Democrats have introduced a resolution of inquiry to get the 
information

[[Page H4272]]

from the whistleblower who has talked about what happened to the more 
than 300 million Americans who depend on Social Security. This impacts 
all 435 congressional districts.
  Madam Speaker, you have 161,000 Social Security recipients in your 
district. I know that you do not stand for having their personal 
information gone through, looked over, and utilized for anything that 
was unintended, let alone having been taken from its secure position in 
Social Security and stored in a cloud that no one from the Social 
Security Administration has access to. That makes everyone's 
information vulnerable.
  Democrats are calling for DOGE to come before the Committee on Ways 
and Means so that they can tell the American people, number one, why 
they needed to look at their personal data to begin with and, number 
two, what they are doing with it and why they took it from a secure 
location.
  No one on DOGE has been vetted by the United States Senate or 
Congress. None of them are accountable for what they are doing. For the 
President to allow them to have access to every American's personal 
data is an outrage.

  Democrats and Republicans should join together and do our 
responsibility as a separate branch of government and the branch of 
government that has control over Social Security to make sure that 
these DOGE individuals are held accountable.
  Democrats demand answers, and I am proud to be joined by Rich Neal in 
making sure that, on the Committee on Ways and Means, the committee of 
cognizance for Social Security, we have DOGE come before us. If they 
are doing such a great job and are exposing all of this fraud and 
abuse, why aren't they in front of Congress to tell us about it? 
Democrats demand that DOGE be held accountable for what they have 
stolen and put into a cloud.

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