matters referred to it, or by providing for its discharge from the further consideration of any bill committed to it, after it shall have acted without debate on all amendments pending or that may be offered; but as a rule every member has a chance to offer what suggestions he pleases upon questions of appropriation, and many hours are spent in business-like debate and amendment of such bills, clause by clause and item by item. The House learns pretty thoroughly what is in each of its appropriation bills before it sends it to the Senate.
But, unfortunately, the dealings of the Senate with money bills generally render worthless the painstaking action of the House. The Senate has been established by precedent in the very freest possible privileges of amendment as regards these bills no less than as regards all others. The Constitution is silent as to the origination of bills appropriating money. It says simply that “all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives,” and that in considering these “the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills” (Art. I., Sec. VII.); but, “by a practice as old as the Government itself, the constitutional prerogative of the House has been held to apply to all the general appropriation bills,”[1]
- ↑ Senator Hoar’s article, already several times quoted.
