Scalise Gives Progress Report on “One Big, Beautiful Bill”
WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (LA-1) appeared yesterday morning before a breakfast meeting of The Ripon Society, delivering a progress report on the unprecedented effort underway on Capitol Hill to cut taxes and lower spending, and why he is hopeful that an agreement will be reached for the President to sign next month.
“It’s a work in progress,” Scalise stated, describing the effort. “We are in the middle of this great experiment, and it’s going well. But every day is a challenge. Today will be another challenge. We are working through the Medicaid side of things. SALT, an issue that only applies to a couple of members in our conference and doesn’t apply to anybody in the Senate because there is not a single Republican Senator from a SALT state … we’ve got to resolve this.”
“We’re not fully there yet. But we surely have a good understanding of what it means. For some people, that fix means another $500 billion in SALT deductions. We just can’t do that. And so you’ve got to balance the two, because ultimately, you’re raising money, you’re achieving savings, you’re having cuts, whatever you want to call them, all to ultimately get smarter tax policy to ensure that nobody has a tax increase. That’s where we start.”
Scalise was first elected to Congress in 2008, after serving nearly a decade in both branches of the Louisiana State Legislature. He has been a member of the House Republican leadership for over a decade, having served as Majority Whip from 2014 to 2019 and Minority Whip from 2019 to 2022, before his election as Majority Leader in November 2023.
In his remarks yesterday morning, the veteran lawmaker described the basic philosophy that is guiding Congressional Republicans, and some of the key provisions that will likely be included in the final bill.
“We want a pro-growth tax policy,” Scalise said matter-of-factly. “How do you do that? There are a lot of things we can do. The President ran on some very specific things. I don’t know if you heard this, but President Trump said he wants to get rid of tax on tips. We are going to get rid of tax on tips. It has a cost, and we’re putting that together. Some of the other items he talked about – we’re putting those together, too.”
The Majority Leader also said he thought the final agreement that is reached will be more significant in size and scope than the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was enacted in 2017.
“We’re going to have one big, beautiful bill,” he stated. “It’s going to be a lot bigger than what we did in 2017. And I think what we did in 2017 was historic … Today, we’re not using just two committees in reconciliation. There are 11 committees involved, and much broader policy.
“We’re going into energy production again, but we’re also going into border security. We’re funding the wall. We’re funding technology for our border agents. We’re doing a debt ceiling increase in this bill, a two-year debt ceiling increase, taken off the table so that President Trump doesn’t have to negotiate with Chuck Schumer, who does not want to negotiate with us at all after what happened on the CR.
“We’re actually addressing so many of the deficiencies where we’ve fallen behind in our nation’s defense. The Financial Services Committee is involved in this, too. So is Agriculture, putting work requirements in place on a lot of programs. You go back to the Clinton-era work requirements that were incredibly popular with the country – they’ve been all watered down and pretty much eviscerated over the last 30 years. We’re restoring many of those, too, which is good for the economy, by the way.
“If somebody is fully able-bodied and they’re sitting at home playing video games and you’re paying them 35 to 40 thousand dollars a year not to work, that is bad for the country. It’s bad for them too by the way, but it’s bad for the country and the economy, and it drains resources that we just don’t have when we’re running $1.8 trillion deficits.”
Scalise closed his remarks by expressing optimism that Congress will have an agreement for the President to sign next month, and that the agreement will make a difference in the lives of the American people.
“Eight of the 11 committees have already finished all their work, and we have three remaining,” he stated. “We’re working on the final details of what those committees will achieve next week. And it is going to happen next week. We’re keeping a very aggressive timeframe. We want this bill signed by President Trump in June.
“We want the economic growth and the economic benefits. We want those families who have been struggling for the last four years to finally start getting the economic impact in their paychecks. More money in their paychecks from economic growth, more money in their paychecks when they go to the grocery store and pay 20 percent less or more.
“That’s real money in the pockets of those waiters and waitresses who won’t be paying taxes on tips. That’s cash in their pockets.”
To view the Majority Leader’s remarks before The Ripon Society yesterday morning, please click the link below:
The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 – Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.