New rules from House Republicans that govern floor debate on tax bills, such as restricting measures that raise income tax rates or requiring more specific cost estimates, reflect new GOP priorities intended to clamp down on spending hikes, tax increases and IRS audits.

The House voted 220-213 along party lines earlier this month to approve the GOP's new rule package that will likely ensure that partisan differences over tax policy, budgets and federal debt — which were an ongoing battle during the first two years of President Joe Biden's term in office — will also be a hallmark of the 118th Congress.

Republicans see their rules as a way to cut unnecessary spending and limit the growth of the federal government, with some far-right GOP lawmakers taking those priorities even further by threatening to withhold their support for raising the federal debt limit. Meanwhile, Democrats view the GOP rules as thinly veiled attempts to reward wealthy individuals and businesses with more and deeper tax cuts while withholding federal resources from poor and middle-class Americans.

To pass legislation that increases the federal tax rate and generates higher tax revenues, the new House GOP rules would require approval by a new supermajority vote of two-thirds of members present. Republicans hope to make it more difficult to raise federal taxes, which they believe will stop Congress from seeking new federal spending.

Republican rules also require that the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation provide lawmakers with cost estimates that include the macroeconomic impact of major legislation.

The estimates would be required on bills, including those that change tax revenues, that have a gross budgetary effect of at least 0.25% of the projected annual gross domestic product. The chair of the House Budget Committee or the chair or vice chair of the Joint Committee on Taxation could designate bills that must receive the new cost estimates.

The Budget Committee chair could also adjust the cost estimates to exempt the budgetary effects of measures intended to protect Americans with taxable incomes below $400,000 from an increase in Internal Revenue Service audits above the most recent tax year. Republicans said this provision would protect taxpayers from unnecessary audits that were approved as part of an $80 billion boost in IRS funding over the decade.

The GOP rules replaced the Democrats' "PAYGO" rule, which required any new tax cuts to be offset by corresponding tax increases or spending cuts. Instead, Republicans approved a new "CUTGO" rule that removed the requirement for tax increases and instead requires any new spending on federal programs to be offset by cuts in existing programs.

The new GOP rules will also prohibit the House from considering any budget reconciliation bill approved by the Senate that increases mandatory spending, even if that spending is offset by higher taxes. Budget reconciliation bills are typically used when one political party has control of both Congress and the White House to limit the ability of the minority party to filibuster and kill tax legislation.

That rule probably won't come into effect in the next few years because it would require House Republicans to reach an agreement with Senate Democrats and the White House on a budget resolution that includes reconciliation instructions.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said the new GOP rules lay out the ability for the House to conduct business and address the problems faced by people across the country.

"In fact, we have seen many of the problems that families are facing across America created by the things that have come out of this Congress signed by President Biden," Scalise said.

Scalise criticized the way House Democrats stifled amendments on the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in August.

"We had a bill that was over $4 trillion in spending and taxes that was brought through multiple committees in Congress, and not one amendment was allowed to be brought forward and passed," he said.

Joel Friedman, a senior vice president for federal fiscal policy for the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that the rules can be waived anytime the majority wishes to do so, but he suggested that the influence of the far-right Republicans — those whose votes were key in electing Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker — might make it more difficult to sidestep the rules. In addition, GOP legislation with these restrictions is unlikely to go far in the Democratic-controlled Senate, he said.

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