Every House Republican voted Thursday to reject the proposition that the Bush tax cuts added to the deficit. 

Joined by just a handful of Democrats, the full Republican conference rejected a measure that would have affirmed what nearly all budget experts and economists recognized: President George W. Bush’s debt-financed tax cuts blew up the budget in the last decade, leaving the country in a hole that sank into a chasm after the 2008 financial crisis.

The final tally was 174-244. If it had passed, the measure – authored by Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI) – would have amended a GOP-backed bill that would have changed the way neutral budget score-keepers analyze the effects of taxation, to make it appear as if unpaid-for tax cuts don’t deepen deficits.