Revenue Bills Can Be Proposed Only by the House. The Senate. The Speaker. The President.

Ability of the Bag

Historical Highlight

"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."
— U.S. Constitution, Article I, section vii, clause one

"No Coin shall exist drawn from the Treasury, but in Result of Appropriations fabricated past Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from fourth dimension to time."
— U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 9, clause 7

/tiles/non-collection/i/i_origins_power_purse_approps_lc.xml Epitome courtesy of the Library of Congress The House Appropriations Committee in 1918 featuring (from left to correct) futurity Secretary of State James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, quondam Speaker Joseph Cannon of Illinois, Chairman J. Swagar Sherley of Kentucky, hereafter Speaker Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts, time to come Secretary of War James West. Skilful of Iowa, and future Speaker Joseph Byrns of Tennessee.

Congress—and in particular, the House of Representatives—is invested with the "ability of the purse," the ability to revenue enhancement and spend public money for the national regime. Massachusetts' Elbridge Gerry said at the Federal Ramble Convention that the House "was more immediately the representatives of the people, and information technology was a saying that the people ought to hold the purse-strings."

Origins

English language history heavily influenced the Constitutional framers. The British House of Commons has the exclusive correct to create taxes and spend that revenue, which is considered the ultimate check on royal authority. Indeed, the American colonists' cry of "No revenue enhancement without representation!" referred to the injustice of London imposing taxes on them without the do good of a voice in Parliament.

Constitutional Framing

Debate at the Constitutional Convention centered on 2 issues. The first was to ensure that the executive would non spend money without congressional potency. The second concerned the roles the House and Senate would play in setting fiscal policy.

At the Convention, the framers considered the extent to which the Senate—like the House of Lords—should exist express in its consideration of budget bills. The provision was office of a compromise between the big and small states. Smaller states, which would be over-represented in the Senate, would concede the power to originate money bills to the Firm, where states with larger populations would have greater control. Speaking in favor of the provision, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania said, "It was a maxim that those who feel, can best judge. This stop would . . . be best attained, if money affairs were to be bars to the firsthand representatives of the people." The provision in the committee's written report to the Convention was adopted, five to three, with three states divided on the question. The Convention reconsidered the matter over the course of 2 months, but the provision was finally adopted, nine to two, in September 1787.

The ramble provision making Congress the ultimate authority on government spending passed with far less debate. The framers were unanimous that Congress, every bit the representatives of the people, should be in command of public funds—non the President or executive co-operative agencies. This strongly-held belief was rooted in the framers' experiences with England, where the king had broad latitude over spending in one case the money had been raised.

The Early Appropriations Process

The First Congress (1789–1791) passed the get-go appropriations act—a mere thirteen lines long—a few months after it convened. The law funded the government, including important pensions for Revolutionary War veterans, with simply $639,000—an amount in the tens of millions in real terms. This simple process was curt-lived. Over fourth dimension, nine regular cribbing bills emerged and funded such priorities as pensions, harbors, the post office, and the military. These were considered on an annual basis by the late 1850s. The House Committee on Ways and Means, which also had jurisdiction over tax policy, controlled the appropriations procedure. But legislation and funding were always kept split. Priorities were spelled out in one law and money appropriated for those priorities in another. This has remained the practice, every bit substantive committees blueprint say-so acts and the House and Senate Cribbing Committees fund authorized programs later. Indeed, there are laws and parliamentary rules against making new constabulary in cribbing bills, although such rules are periodically waived.

Subsequent Reforms

In 1865, after the Civil War had created a nearly $3 billion national debt and spending exceeded a billion dollars a twelvemonth, Congress reformed its funding process to handle the government'due south new demands. The House separated the Ways and Means Committee'due south taxing and spending functions. The Appropriations Committee was established to fund programs, while Ways and Means retained jurisdiction on tax policy. House leadership and other committees also tried to influence the appropriations process, and the lack of coordination over the years led to high deficits and the implementation of the federal income tax in 1913. Congress passed the Budget and Accounting Human action in 1921 to address some of the coordination problems it faced funding government programs. This law centralized many of the budgeting functions with the President, who still has considerable calendar-setting power with the federal budget and submits a draft budget to Congress at the beginning of every year. The appropriations procedure has been reformed multiple times since 1921, including notable restructurings with the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Command Act of 1974 and the Gramm–Rudman–Hollings Acts of 1985 and 1987.

For Further Reading

Farrand, Max, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Rev. ed. 4 vols. (New Oasis and London: Yale Academy Printing, 1937).

Garfield, James. "National Appropriations and Misappropriations," N American Review, 270: 572–586.

Kiewiet, D. Roderick and Mathew D. McCubbins. The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process. (Chicago: The Academy of Chicago Printing, 1991).

Kimmel, Lewis. Federal Budget and Fiscal Policy, 1789–1958. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1959).

Leloup, Lance. The Fiscal Congress. (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1980).

Schick, Allen. Congress and Money: Budgeting, Spending and Taxing. (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Found, 1980).

—. The Federal Budget: Politics, Policy, Process. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000).

Selko, Daniel. The Federal Fiscal System. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1940).

Stewart, Charles H., III. Budget Reform Politics: The Blueprint of the Appropriations Process in the House of Representatives, 1865–1921. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

Wildavsky, Aaron B. Budgeting and Governing. (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006).

—. The New Politics of the Budgetary Process. 5th ed. (New York: Longman, 2003).

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Source: https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Power-of-the-Purse/

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