After every election, the House of Representatives must vote on the rules that will govern its behavior during the coming Congress. For the 108th Congress, this package included several changes that strengthened the Republican majority's power and tilted outcomes in favor of conservative principles. Two changes in particular were at issue in the vote here. The first allowed committee chairs to delay their committees' vote on a bill, giving them the power to hold the bill until circumstances on the committee or in the House at large appeared more advantageous for the bill's passage. The second was a requirement that tax bills use "dynamic scoring" to calculate the effects of tax changes on the deficit. Under dynamic scoring, assumptions about the positive effects of a tax cut on the economy are worked into predictions of the deficit. This makes a tax cut's effect on government revenue and the deficit seem smaller. To Progressives, the first change helped shut them out of decision-making, and the second made large Republican tax cuts seem less damaging to the deficit than they were. They supported a motion by Slaughter (D-NY) to commit the rules package to a special committee of the majority and minority leader, with instructions that these two provisions be eliminated. Progressives voted "yes," but the motion was defeated on an almost perfect party-line vote, 200- 225 (one Republican voted with the Democrats).