The Senate under Harry Reid is demanding that the US House immediately pass H.R. 8, which is the Senate’s fiscal cliff deal. Constitutionally, spending and taxation bills must originate in the US House. So the Senate took H.R. 8, gutted it, and substituted last night’s deal into that bill. That sounds messy but it has been done many times in the past.
But for all the Democrats’ bluster, the House actually took up H.R 8 way back in July 2012. The House’s version of H.R. stopped the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for another year. It cleaned up the tax code and patched the AMT, among other things. The House passed it on August 1, 2012.
The Democrat-controlled Senate did nothing with it until the fiscal cliff deadline loomed. That’s when, last night, they gutted it and passed it in the dead of night on New Year’s.
The Democrats’ demand to pass the Senate version now also brings to mind an old promise that came from none other than Barack Obama. He promised not to have bill voted on until they had been posted online for five days, so the American people could read them and debate them and weigh in on them with their representatives. Obama has repeatedly broken that promise ever since, starting with the Lilly Ledbetter Act and proceeding right through the passage of ObamaCare.
Well, naturally the President–being a poseur–should never be taken at his word.
As far as the issue of revenue bills needing to originate in the House–this is going to have to be addressed eventually. Right now the clause is a functional nullity, and you just can’t do that. My guess is that on this issue alone, the Senate should not be able to amend bills, only pass, otherwise the clause has no meaning. It may be consistent with what Parliament and House of Lords did in the similiar time frame–I admit I do not know, but it does make sense. If Progressives wish to trot out what Britain does, then let’s trot out what Britain does.
As far as what the House GOP should do right now–It should be clear that what we face is a multi-year fight to see if demagogic Progressivism finally triumphs. It is a fight that will occur across multiple fronts–political, cultural, the personal, and so-on. The Republican party simply needs to decide if it wishes to be a part of that fight, or a spectator.
Upon some further thought–basically, if an entire revenue bill cannot originate in the Senate, how can part of one originate there?
Disregard, I just actually pulled out Art I Sect. 7. This is one of those things whose efficacy depends on moral force alone, and in today’s purely materialistic “show me the money (including from the government)” society, we don’t care. In fact, they may have stopped caring right after ratification–I don’t know enough about the Federalist period to that level of detail. Certainly by the time Andrew Jackson got done rearranging things….
Upon further review–I have forgotten that the upper chamber, the less-proportional chamber, has sat on House-passed budgets for the last three years. Now, in Britain–which we must apparently follow in all things gun and health–the upper chamber may only sit on financial bills a month.
Not refuse to pass a budget at all. Thus, for the Seate to now demand the more proportional chamber pass unmolested its money bill, while it has ignored House bills for three years running, is a statement of intent by the Democratic party that the only thing they will ever honor is themselves having an unchecked right to rule, and no ne else having a say at all.
It took the active-duty Army nearly four years to pacify Iraq. It has never truly done so in Afghanistan, despite a decade. I submit that at its present size, there simply is no chance of it ever doing so in a nation substantially larger.
Obama has nothing to worry about, with MSM and Boehner covering for him.