Is the Bailout Constitutional?

Posted by DeltaRho2K on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 3:40pm in

The Public Trust

Once again, the actions of the President of the United States, along with his fellow cohorts in Congress have managed to sidestep landmines carefully placed throughout the Constitution in an effort to pass legislation that is questionable in the first place.

We went to war in Iraq without the Constitutionally mandated Congressional declaration of war and now this...

Article 1, Section 7 of the United States Constitution reads:

"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."

And yet, here we sit -- with a Bill that was drafted by the House, failed, redrafted/amended and passed by the Senate and then sent to the House, after which time, it was passed. (all following the first failure of the bill in the House). By the definition of the article, it should never have been sent to the Senate for debate because it didn't pass the House; and as such, a Bill first passed by the Senate should be considered to have been drafted in the Senate - in direct contradiction to the Constitution. This Bill is expressly written for the purposes of raising revenue and is mandated to have its origins in the House - that means, it has to pass the House muster before being sent to the Senate in any respect.

Am I missing something here? Did my elected Representatives just sidestep the Constitution in order to pass a Bailout Bill that I adamantly oppose and have voiced my opinion to them about?!? I'm interested in seeing how others might view this. Or am I off base with this thought process?

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