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FIRST ON FOX: The No. 2 leader in the House of Representatives has confirmed plans for a fourth “big, beautiful bill” that would tackle government waste and abuse of federal dollars.
“If you’re a single waitress, working three shifts at a diner, Democrats voted against you keeping your tip money … so that they can give that money to fraudsters in Minnesota who were sending it to terrorist organizations,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News Digital, referring to Republicans’ first sweeping party-line budget bill that President Donald Trump dubbed his “one big, beautiful bill.”
“It’s insane, but that was really going on. There’s more of it. We want to root that out. So we’re gonna move yet another reconciliation bill to focus on things like rooting out waste and fraud, to give that money back to taxpayers.”
TOP REPUBLICAN PUSHES FOR RECONCILIATION 3.0 TO ADDRESS AFFORDABILITY
The budget reconciliation process allows the party in power in Congress to pass sweeping fiscal policy legislation while completely sidelining the other side — in this case, Democrats.
It does so by bypassing the Senate filibuster — which needs 60 votes to overcome — allowing the upper chamber to line up with the House’s own simple majority threshold.
But the measures in a reconciliation bill must adhere to a strict set of rules, such as not touching Social Security and only including policies that would affect the federal budget.
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Congressional Republicans have passed two reconciliation bills so far, one focused on Trump’s tax priorities and another replenishing funds for the president’s immigration crackdown.
The GOP is working on a third that would add some $95 billion in federal spending over the next 10 years. It includes $73 billion toward the U.S. war with Iran, $12 billion in aid for American farmers, and $10 billion for states to implement election security measures that were part of the SAVE America Act.
But some House fiscal hawks are threatening to oppose the measure over its lack of spending cuts to offset those dollars.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought both pitched a fourth bill during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning in a bid to assuage those concerns, multiple people told Fox News Digital.
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Scalise’s comments are the first public confirmation from a member of House GOP senior leadership that such a bill was in the works.
“We want to move that as soon as we finish reconciliation 3.0. So when we were working on reconciliation 2.0, we were already starting to put together 3.0, but we waited until we passed 2.0. Then we went right to work on this latest reconciliation bill,” Scalise said.
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