Your post prompts a question about the differences between our respective nations’ constitutions. Here in Canada, all financial matters must be initiated in the House of Commons, which is our equivalent to your House of Representatives. Our Senate must ratify, but cannot initiate, any legislation involving revenue or spending, which is the tradition under English Common Law. Has this been retained in the US? The reason I’m asking is that it is quite likely that after the next election the GOP will control the House but the Democrats may still have control of the Senate.
In the US, all financial matters must be generated in the House of Representatives, as you described Canada’s system.
A dem Senate gives us...gridlock! Not always a bad thing.
“Has this been retained in the US? “
Yes. But the power will be hard to exercise. The house initiates spending legislation. But if the Senate does not pass the same legislation, there is no spending authorization and government will shut down.
Thus, if the house passes a spending bill as part of a typically large spending bill and it defunds Obamacare and prohibits spending any money to implement it but the senate refuses to pass it because it defunds obamacare, the consequence is there is no spending authorization.
So it’s like a nuclear weapon. You force the Senate and Obama to swallow something they hate because the alternative is to shut down the government. And make no mistake, even if the R’s win control in the Senate, at least 40 senators will hate defunding Obamacare and that’s enough to block the spending bill.