B.2. Procedural Requirements

All bills involving taxation must be stand-alone bills and must originate in the House of Representatives. No bill may contain both taxation provisions and non-taxation provisions.

Tax bills can’t have riders. Riders are amendments that are attached to “must-pass,” or sometimes just popular legislation to sneak through unrelated provisions that likely couldn’t pass on their own. Though an argument can be made that this is the give-and-take of legislative negotiation. But if a deal is sound, both provisions should be able to stand on their own as individual bills. No, that’s not what’s really at stake with most riders, at all. They are all too often special-interest legislation that is rammed through in a borderline nefarious procedure. The resulting bills are bloated. Often members don’t have time to read them before voting. Accountability gets lost. When that happens, the public can’t hold anyone to account for what’s in the law — because no one can even say for sure who put it there. In short, they are undemocratic in function. I believe they are usually so in intent, as well, but it isn’t necessary to concede that for my argument to be valid.

Tax bills are also, as I noted earlier, part of the power of the purse. All of those considerations are properly the realm of the chamber closest to the people. That’s because the taxes are drawn from the people. Spending benefits the people. In other words, the reason tax bills need to originate from the House of Representatives, is because they are the representative voice of the citizens, and it is the citizens who bear the effects of tax laws.