Screenshot of Sen. Rick Scott in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 18, 2024.
Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is leading a group of Republicans in pushing GOP congressional leadership to commit to a “two-step reconciliation process” beginning with passing a major border security bill early in the next Congress.
The second step would be to extend the tax cuts first passed and signed into law by Donald Trump in 2017 that are scheduled to expire at the end of next year.
“The American public right now wants a secure border,” Scott said in kicking off a press conference in Washington on Wednesday with a group of congressional Republicans. “Now, unfortunately, it’s going to take a lot of resources, which it wouldn’t have taken if the border had never been opened.”
Scott and Maryland House Republican Andy Harris sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader John Thune asking that the first reconciliation bill that the GOP-controlled Congress should send to President Trump next year would provide four years of funding for border security and the following:
- Complete and strengthen the border wall started in Trump’s first presidential administration.
- Hire thousands of additional Customs and Border Protection officers and agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to “effectively secure the border” and apprehend and remove migrants who have entered the U.S. without documents.
- Ensure a “substantial increase” in the number of detention and short-term holding facilities.
- Encourage “self-deportation by imposing significant financial penalties on aliens illegally in the U.S.”
- Limit, and in most instances eliminate, a noncitizen’s ability to apply for and receive taxpayer-funded welfare benefits.
- “Not only be offset with real mandatory spending cuts … but also achieve deficit reduction with additional spending cuts at a level the conferences require and are realistic for passage.”
Extend tax cuts
Scott said that it is crucial for the Congress to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, perhaps Trump’s most significant piece of legislation during his first term. That law is set to expire at the end of 2025. Scott demanded that extension should attempt to improve tax policy overall. He said he hopes to find “at least” $2.5 trillion in savings.
“The reality is, the numbers are going to have to be bigger than that,” he said.
Scott has been emphatic for years that Congress needs to cut federal spending, going as far as to suggest in 2022 that lawmakers should “sunset” every federal program every five years, including Social Security and Medicare — a provision he removed from his plan after receiving significant pushback not just from Democrats but also from Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.
“I’ve been up here six years, we’ve doubled the federal debt,” he told reporters. “From $18 to $36 trillion. This is a problem. Inflation will not go away. Interest rates are not going to come down until we start figuring out how to save money.”
Scott and congressional Republicans are talking about passing reconciliation bills because they allow some tax and spending bills to pass with a simple majority vote. The U.S. Senate’s filibuster rule requires 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation. Republicans will start next year with a 53-47 Senate majority, not enough to pass legislation with just GOP votes. But through reconciliation, they could do so.
The GOP is expected to have a 220-215 advantage in the House of Representatives. A simple majority is required to pass legislation in that body.
Reconciliation has been used 23 times in total, according to Reuters.