House Republicans Pursue No-New-Tax Bill Strategy

House Republican leaders are intentionally delaying passage of any new tax bills until they decide what to do about reforming the nation's tax system overall.

So far this session, the House hasn’t passed any bills that would raise or cut taxes. The idea, at least in part, is to prevent the Senate from boosting taxes as part of a plan to get rid of the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester, Politico reports.

All tax bills must start in the House, so Senate Democrats will be unable to raise taxes as part of an agreement to ease the impact of the automatic spending cuts. If they pass a bill to do so, the House can simply ignore it.

“The bottom line is we want tax reform, but we want to plug those loopholes that the president talks about, to bring down tax rates because we believe that’s pro-growth, and we can get [the] economy growing again,” House Minority Leader Eric Cantor told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

“Let people who earn the money keep more of it. The president’s not talking about that. He’s talking about raising more taxes to spend.”