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House Republican leaders are already starting to float reconciliation 4.0 — even with a third party-line budget bill barely out of the gate and facing an uncertain future.
The idea for a fourth bill that utilizes the special process that enables budget-related legislation to get through Congress with only Republican votes comes as many House Republicans are disappointed with the reconciliation 3.0 framework being significantly downsized from the “anti-fraud” spending reductions and defense boost that many Republicans had envisioned.
Instead, GOP leaders unveiled the latest $95 billion framework as a means to quickly address the Pentagon’s need to replenish munitions amid the war in Iran, provide critical farm aid, and try to answer President Trump’s call for voter ID and proof-of-citizenship voting restrictions in the vein of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act through a new grant program for states. The bill includes no spending reductions or cuts to offset the $95 billion, peeving budget hawks.
GOP leaders have briefly floated to members the possibility of a fourth reconciliation package before that could include the kind of big budget reduction measures that Republicans had been hoping for.
“No one thought we could get to reconciliation 3.0, and we think we’re going to get through it. And then all of a sudden, now we’re talking about reconciliation 4.0,” House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) said at the Hill Nation Summit on Wednesday.
“I’m just giving you a little teaser on that,” McClain said, “because we do have to deal with the waste, the fraud, the abuse, the offsets, the afford— all of that stuff.”
Opening that up now, McClain said, would make it “a lot more difficult to get to the SAVE America Act.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) also publicly floated a fourth GOP bill on Wednesday, the day that leadership released the text for the reconciliation framework.
“We’re right now looking at a reconciliation 4.0 to do the things that are left out of this one,” Scalise told Politico.
This isn’t the first time that Republican leadership has pointed into the future to float a GOP spending bill packed with cost reductions when members expressed disappointment with a slimmed-down package.
Just about two months ago, members of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus and their allies had resisted a “skinny” reconciliation 2.0 bill funding immigration enforcement and the Border Patrol, anxious to make the most of their last remaining chance at pushing a GOP-only bill through Congress before the midterm elections.
They relented only after members felt comfortable that leaders would pursue a third bigger reconciliation bill.
This time, though, GOP members tell The Hill that the prospect of reconciliation 4.0 isn’t being used so much as a carrot to win over holdouts as it is being mentioned as a potential opportunity.
But they also say it is too soon to count on a fourth package.
“It’s a little early to see,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said he would “obviously” like to see a fourth reconciliation package, and “if that can be done, I think we need to do it.”
The third bill, McClintock said, “was an emergency response to circumstances that required immediate attention … but it’s not what the budget process is for.”
Instructions for the reconciliation 3.0 effort advanced without much pushback in the House Budget Committee on Thursday, outlining $73 billion for defense and intelligence funding; $12 billion for agriculture aid; and $10 billion for a program to encourage states to adopt voting restrictions. Many of the details, though, still need to be ironed out.
Leaders are aiming to pass the budget resolution on the floor next week, where fiscal hawks outside of the Budget panel can easily band together to hold up the legislation.
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said he is not yet supportive of the 3.0 plan because of the lack of offsets, and expressed skepticism that $10 billion for a grant program would be enough to persuade states to change their voting policies.
“Look, you had huge incentives in Obamacare, and you still have 11 states that rejected, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to expand Medicaid, right? So it’s nothing for states, if we’re going to just throw a few million bucks their way,” Burlison said.
Rep. Warren Davison (R-Ohio) posted on social media this week that the framework would be “DOA” — dead on arrival — in the House because of the lack of offsets.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can afford to lose no more than three Republicans on a party-line vote, assuming all members are present and voting.
Even if it gets through the House, the bill faces ample skepticism from Republicans in the Senate for a variety of reasons — and the chamber will have an opportunity to significantly alter the scope of the budget plan, assuming it takes it up at all.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told Punchbowl News that a third reconciliation bill is a “risky proposition” and questioned whether “the juice is worth the squeeze.”
And Rep. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) pledged to oppose the plan if it includes Trump-backed voting restrictions.
“If I see a reconciliation bill come from the House with another failed attempt to confuse this election, I will use every device I have available to slow down the wheels of government until people cop a clue and do the math,” Tillis said on the Senate floor Thursday.
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