As Congress prepares to reconvene next month, U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) is doubtful that a second reconciliation package will be passed anytime soon, despite the success with President Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill."
On Thursday's episode of FM Talk 106.5's "The Jeff Poor Show," Aderholt said the package would be a difficult sell due to timing, Ukraine War concerns and a host of other factors.
"We were able to move on that rescission package that we had earlier in the summer. But I think a second package is going to be a little bit more difficult because of the timing, and because of that, the appropriations process is actually going to be kicking into high gear when we get back the first part of September," he said. "We have to pass all those 12 appropriation bills or pass a continuing resolution to get us through the cutoff date of when the new fiscal year starts on October 1."
He continued, "We have to have something, we've got to have a continuing resolution to move forward for another 30, 60 days until we can get all these bills passed. We've got to pass all these bills. And I'll be honest with you, there's just no way that we will have enough time to pass all 12 bills. We've passed two in the House. I think the Senate has passed three. Again, there's 12 of them to be passed. They have to be passed by both chambers and then conferenced. And the president has to agree to them. So, there's not a lot of time to be able to do that.
"So, that's going to complicate another reconciliation bill. I'm all for another reconciliation bill if it's one that gets rid of waste and fraud and abuse the president is seeing through the different agencies. And so, I'm very supportive of it."
Aderholt predicted the next reconciliation package would make it through the House but be stalled in the Senate.
"We have to have 60 votes in the Senate," he said. "As you know, the rule in the House, we just have to have a majority. We'll have that. I think we can get a majority to do a reconciliation bill or, hopefully, pass the appropriation bills. But the Senate is where the sticky part is going to be."
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