Scalise: House Republicans Will Unify Behind One Reconciliation Bill

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss House Republicans’ plans for one reconciliation bill that extends President Trump’s tax cuts and prevents the largest tax hike in American history. Additionally, he noted that the reconciliation bill will eliminate waste, maximize American energy investments, and reform Medicaid to stop fraud.
  
On House Republicans passing legislation to bolster President Trump's agenda:

“There's a lot of good things in store. Every step of the way since President Trump was sworn in now in his second term, we've been working with them very closely on the things they're doing, clearly with what the DOGE is doing. We're working because some of those items are going to have to be done legislatively to get rid of that wasteful spending, but also on what we're going to do to get our economy growing again. That's really where we get into these budget talks and ultimately the budget reconciliation process to lock in the Trump tax cuts, many of which are expiring at the end of this year. We sure don't want to see a massive four-and-a-half trillion dollar tax increase. So we have legislation to prevent that. To produce more energy in America, some of that takes legislative action. Clearly, we're working with President Trump on what he wants to do to open up more energy in America. That's going to bring in more revenue, by the way, create more jobs, lower costs for families so that you can lower inflation.

“Build the wall. President Trump needs funding to build out the wall, to give more technology to our Border Patrol agents like drones, like night vision goggles, so they can better secure our border. That's going to be in this bill that we're putting together as well. A lot of work has been going on behind the scenes for weeks now, but it's time to put that down on paper, start getting the committees directly involved in working so that we can move this legislation forward. Yes, one bill.”

On the need to unify House Republicans around budget reconciliation:

“Yeah, and [the smaller margins are] what's so different about this year than 2017. You think back, we lost, as you pointed out, 22 Republicans just on the budget before we could even get to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which really revolutionized our country, made our country competitive economically again. Before we could even bring that bill to the floor, we had to pass the budget first, losing 22 Republicans. This time around, we can't lose two Republicans. One, maybe, not even two. 

“We're working very closely with all of our members. As you know, not all of our members see everything the same way. We're having a lot of meetings with a whole cross-section of members. They're given a lot of input. They've got their ideas, but ultimately, we've got to bring all those ideas together and put it in one bill, and then everybody's got to vote for that one bill. We're getting closer. We've narrowed a lot of those differences over the last few weeks, but we still have one or two final pieces left. I think we're getting closer on narrowing those as well, then we can move the bill out of committee.”

On eliminating the waste of hard-earned taxpayer dollars and maximizing American investment:

“Yeah, those [numbers] are the things that are being negotiated. We're already all the way up to a trillion dollars and more in identified cuts and savings to taxpayers. I'm talking about common sense things like social security verification in some of our big programs. I mean, you've got illegal aliens getting major benefits, Medicaid, which they're not even legally eligible to get because there's not enough verification. So you've got a program that's potentially headed for bankruptcy for people who actually paid into it, who deserve to get that benefit. And yet there are thousands of illegal aliens that are getting on that program, costing it billions of dollars that shouldn't even be on it. That's going to be something we go after. Work requirements is another thing. So you can get up to some really big money, billions here, billions there. It adds up quickly. But ultimately, then you also have to count in economic growth, because if we lock in the tax cuts from 2017, which really got our economy moving, created millions of jobs.

“There's a lot of uncertainty right now in the economy. I'm sure you can see it. People don't want to make investments because, for example, the 199A goes away. That's a big deduction for small business owners so that they get an equalized tax rate as our corporations do. If you take that away, every small and medium-sized business in America becomes uncompetitive. You can't let that happen, but that creates uncertainty. If we lock these rates in, it'll bring a lot more investment into the economy. If you open up more American energy, it brings billions more investment into America's economy. That growth also factors into offsetting this bill so that it becomes deficit-neutral.”

On DOGE rooting out the mess left behind by the Biden-Harris administration:

“Well, we're looking at different things. Obviously, work requirements in Medicaid is the place you would start. And as you pointed out, even going back to COVID, Medicaid mushroomed exponentially, adding millions more people onto the program that were not on it before. That had private insurance, other forms of insurance. And now the taxpayers of America are picking up that tab. Again, when we're running deficits to be adding more people onto government programs and taking them off of private sector insurance, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Obviously, that was done when the government was spending trillions of dollars under the Biden-Harris administration, and that drove inflation. That drove a lot of the high costs you pay at the grocery store in other places. People want us to get that under control. We're working to get that under control. I think it's why people are really excited about what the DOGE is doing to find savings, identifying a lot of this ludicrous spending at so many of these federal agencies that are not working for the American people, federal workers who aren't even showing up to work, yet getting paid over $100,000 a year, while American citizens have to show up for their job. These are the disparities that people are fed up with that are finally being addressed.

“Elon Musk feels he can get up to a trillion dollars, which is separate than the trillion we're working on and more. We're looking at other things beyond a trillion dollars, but we're at least there.

“There's a lot going on, but get used to it. This is how President Trump works. He came back on the second term really focused. You all are going to be able to handle it, but we're going to deliver a lot of results for hardworking families.”

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