Why does it matter which house of Congress a bill originates in?

Question

The U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Sec. 7) states that:\n\n> 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.\n\nOften times when discussing fiscal policy, political pundits from both parties will complain that the House needs to use the "power of the purse" to get things done.\n\nBut given that:\n\n 1. The legislative process is the same as any other bill, and\n 2. Both houses usually work on their own versions of bills and reconcile the differences anyway,\n\nWhat difference does it make where the bill originates? What benefit/advantage does this give the House of Representatives over the Senate (since it's obvious that was the intent)?

Answer 1

It matters greatly. You want politicians accountable to the people and a 2-year term for House members accomplishes that. But what has derailed that safeguard is that nowadays we have OMNIBUS BIlls Like the recent trillion dollar bill, a bill that has many totally unrelated pork-barrel provisions tucked away in a bill so cumbersome, poorly-worded and huge that no one can really see what they are doing,

"the bill, which is combined with a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill, is 5,593 pages long"