Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss the importance of getting reconciliation across the finish line in the House, following its passage out of the Budget Committee last night. Leader Scalise outlined how this bill will prevent tax hikes and a debt crisis, secure the border, bolster American energy production, and strengthen safety net programs for deserving Americans.
 
On House and Senate Republicans unifying around reconciliation:

“Last night, Budget Committee was another big step getting the bill through. And we were having conversations, Speaker Johnson, myself, with some of the members that still have some questions that were on the Budget Committee. We had that conversation yesterday for a long time, but then we got the bill through. And now we've still this week got a number of other meetings we're going to have to have with different ends of our conference, everybody from the moderates to the ultra conservatives, and everybody in between, because there's so many important parts of this bill. You think about it, it's tax policy, making sure nobody gets a tax increase. Border policy, giving President Trump the tools he needs to secure the border. Energy policy, making sure that we can produce more energy in America. Food stamps, looking at the debt ceiling, so that we can address and not have a debt crisis. Dealing with mandatory spending, as you point out, this bond downgrade is another serious blow that shows that America needs to get its fiscal house in order. We start to do that in this bill.

“I wish that there was just one Democrat in the House or Senate that would join us in trying to get responsible about addressing these problems, but they're not right now. They're a party in disarray, but we're still unified. We have some issues and questions we're working through, no doubt. But every step of the way, you go back and look at the two-step reconciliation process, the budget, then this reconciliation bill. Every vote has been tight. The margins are tight, but we're getting it done, and we're going to get it done this week in the House.”

On strengthening social safety net programs for Americans who deserve it:

“Yeah, and let's keep in mind, Medicaid still grows under this bill. It just doesn't grow as dramatically. It's been one of the biggest growth areas of the budget. But we do put some constraints in place in terms of work requirements. And say, if somebody is able-bodied and they can go get a job and they're living in their mom's basement playing video games, I'm sorry, you got to go get a job. This program was designed for the truly needy, the disabled people, pregnant women, seniors. Those are the people we're going to help more by shoring the program up. And so why would you want a runaway program that's going bust right now, which is what we have? Let's get the program back on track, and we do that. But clearly, there were a lot of discussions along the way, some of us that would like to go further. But this is where we are in the bill. But the work requirements are going to be significant reforms to get people back in the workforce. And I think ultimately, that's a good thing to take somebody who's fully able to work to get back to work.”

On the timeline of work requirements:

“Yeah, the good news is, Speaker Johnson and myself have already worked with a number of members to move that date up. But one of the things that was involved, and I think the reason the date was so late, and a few of us had an issue with that, is that the Trump Administration needs time to implement it. So we worked with Dr. Oz, and Dr. Oz will ultimately be the person over at CMS to implement the work requirements. And we're coming to a much earlier date, early 2027, that we're going to put in the bill in the Rules Committee this week. So you're going to see a much earlier date, giving Dr. Oz the time he needs to implement the changes, but moving that date up dramatically.

“We are talking to all of those members. We've talked to some of them during the weekend. They heard the overall membership last week. We had a full briefing on this bill, the entirety, all 11 committee chairmen who were involved went through every piece of the bill, and any member could come to this briefing. And we had a lot of members there asking a lot of those questions, including this one. So everybody knew this was something that we were working on. We're going to go through those details again this week before we bring it to the floor.”

On a path forward for reconciliation in the Senate:

“I hope that there are no major rewrites of the bill. We've been talking with the Senate every step of the way. Senator Thune, Senator Crapo, who's going to be handling the bulk of this bill as chairman of Senate Finance. So they know what we were doing on tax policy, which is the biggest piece of this bill, then on Medicaid, which is the next biggest piece of this bill, and all the other points in between. Defense, there were a lot of conversations, differences between the House and Senate. We ultimately went with the Senate's version there on defense. But then on the other pieces, we've been letting them know about the dynamics within our conference and the narrow vote margin, just like they've got a narrow vote margin. They've got ultra-fiscal conservatives. They have moderates in the Senate. I think they're going to run into some of the same dilemmas we had, which is how we struck a balance. We struck a very delicate balance in this bill. It's a very big bill, but a bill that's going to get this economy moving again. It delivers on President Trump's priorities, and it really delivers for those hard-working families who want relief from higher costs at the grocery store, higher inflation, higher interest rates. That's what this bill is going to deliver for them.”

###