All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives

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ftd

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I'm not sure that my question is appropriate at TFL, but please, would some of you lawyer type constitutional experts straighten me out, before locking this down? Please. Thanks in advance.

The Senate healthcare bill contains provisions for "raising Revenue".

Article I, Section 7 (in its entirety), of the United States Constitution states,

"All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."

This bill containing revenue parts originated not in the House but in the Senate. Is there a constitutional issue with this?
 
It was a House bill, amended by the Senate, and accepted by the House as amended.

H.R.3590
Title: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

9/17/2009 Introduced in House
10/8/2009 Passed/agreed to in House: On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 416 - 0 (Roll no. 768).
12/24/2009 Passed/agreed to in Senate: Passed Senate with an amendment and an amendment to the Title by Yea-Nay Vote. 60 - 39. Record Vote Number: 396.
3/21/2010 Resolving differences -- House actions: On motion that the House agree to the Senate amendments Agreed to by recorded vote: 219 - 212 (Roll no. 165).
3/21/2010 Cleared for White House.
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If the House had amended it again, the Senate would have had to vote on it again.
 
The Senate can propose any activity.

The House may approve that activity, without providing for funding.

It can be signed into law, even without funding.

All funding must be approved by the House Appropriations Committee before it goes to a vote of the full House.

In many ways, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is one of the most powerful people in WashDC.
 
Thanks GC. I figured I was missing something. But you never know what those people up in DC might pull.
 
I just read H.R. 3590, the “Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009”, passed with no nay votes by the House of Representatives. The purpose of the bill was as follows:

"To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes."

It is, for the most part, a bill to give certain tax breaks to certain people. It does, however raise revenue as follows:

"SEC. 5. Increase in penalty for failure to file a partnership or S corporation return.
(a) In general.—Sections 6698(b)(1) and 6699(b)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 are each amended by striking “$89” and inserting “$110”.
(b) Effective date.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to returns for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2009.

SEC. 6. Time for payment of corporate estimated taxes.
The percentage under paragraph (1) of section 202(b) of the Corporate Estimated Tax Shift Act of 2009 in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act is increased by 0.5 percentage points."


It is not the House version of Healthcare reform (I still can't find that bill).

The Senate then ammended H.R. 3590, in total, renaming it to

`Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act'

I hope they left in the tax breaks for our service men and women.

This is another "trick" maneuver by our congress. No wonder they have a lower approval rating than George Bush ever had. Everything is by slight of hand. We have been ignoring and putting up with this stuff for way too long.
 
I just read H.R. 3590, the “Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009”, passed with no nay votes by the House of Representatives.
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You are correct that the original H.R.3590 was not the health care bill originally passed by the House. The House passed H.R.3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act on 11/17/2009.

This is another "trick" maneuver by our congress.
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I hope that is not a surprise. Why the Senate stripped H.R.3590 and did a mass substitution of the health care bill is beyond me; someone else may be able to chime in with an answer.

To me, watching the activities of Congress on CSPAN is like taking a tour of a sausage factory.
 
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someone else may be able to chime in with an answer
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Mentioned this revenue thing and it's origin a few days ago.
They stripped all language from a housing bill that did originate in the house, and inserted the healthcare bill. They did not want to even debate the actual house healthcare bill because of it's freakish nature.
 
Synopsis from wiki.

The Senate failed to take up debate on the House bill, instead utilizing H.R. 3590, a bill unrelated to healthcare already passed by the House, as the vehicle for their health care reform proposal, completely revising the content of the bill.[3] This method was chosen rather than initiating a new bill in the Senate because the United States Constitution requires all revenue-related bills to originate in the House.[4] The original title of H.R. 3590, before it was converted to a healthcare bill, was the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009.[5] Although unrelated to healthcare reform, this was a revenue-related modification to the Internal Revenue Code. The bill, as amended, incorporates elements of earlier proposals that had been reported favorably by the Health and Finance committees.

Passage in the Senate was temporarily blocked by a filibuster threat by Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson who sided with Republican minority. Nelson's support for the bill was won after the bill was amended to offer a higher rate medicare reimbursement for the State of Nebraska, the compromise was derisively refered to as the Nebraska Compromise.[2] On December 23, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, eliminating the possibility of a filibuster by opponents. The bill then passed by a vote of 60–39 on December 24, 2009, with one senator not voting.[6][7] This was the first time the Senate had met on Christmas Eve since 1963 (for a debate relating to the Vietnam War), and the first roll call vote on the day since 1895.[8][9]

The bill was then forwarded to the House of Representatives for debate. In the interim, on January 19, 2010, Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown was elected, giving the Republican minority enough votes to sustain a filibuster in the future.[2] On February 25, President Obama unveiled a health care reform plan of his own, drawing largely from the Senate bill. On February 25, he held a meeting with leaders of both parties again urging passage of a reform bill.[2]
 
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