Why do Republicans hate the Constitution?

Unbelievably, the Republicans managed to pass two versions of the Budget Bill, one in the House and one in the Senate--and Bush signed the Senate version [S. 1932] into law (PDF)! The Constiution, Article 1, section 7:

Section 7. 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.

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it.

See, the Constitution doesn't say two bills get passed to the President, and he gets to flip a coin and pick which one--"He shall sign it." There has to be a "meeting of the minds" between House and Senate, as expressed in identical language. But Bush signed the bill into "law" anyhow. That's unconstitutional. Waxman writes to Pelosi (PDF)

The Republican leadership has tried to minimize this issue by characterizing the error as a "technical problem." Indeed, it may have begun as such, but the Republican leadership chose not to correct the error through any of the established means that have been employed for over 200 years. Instead, the leadership ignored the House rules and precedents and even the Constitution itself. This is a fundamental abuse of power without precedent in the history of the United States.

More zany Republican shenanigans follow:

To begin, the House and Senate bills budget bills ended up with different provisions for DME (Durable Medical Equipmment) reimbursement funding (but imagine if this had been, say, the Patriot Act or something really important, like abstinence legislation.) The two bills were then sent to a conference Committee for reconciliation. Waxman picks up the story:

In the process of transmitting the bill, as amended, back to the House, the Senate clerk made a significant substantive changeto the legislation... The Senate clerk realized the mistake, and the Republican House leadership was informed of the error in January, several weeks before the final House floor action was scheduled to occur ...

So far, nothing unprecedented:

Such errors in formal messages between the houses are not unprecedented. They are typically handled by sending the legislation back to the Senate for the mistake to be corrected.

Now comes the abuse:

The response by the Republican leadership to the error in S. 1932, however, was without precedent. It constitutes a violation of the House Rules and the Constitution itself.

Apparently concerned that any additional vote in the Senate could endanger passage of the legislation, the Republican leadership did not seek to correct the problem. Instead, the Republican leadership brought the legislation to the House floor on February 1 without revealing to the Democratic leadership or the body of the House that [the version] of the legislation before the House did not represent the legislation passed by the Senate.

On February 1, the House voted on the version of the bill, as amended, that contained the DME mistake. The vote was extremely close, 216 to 214. As a result of this vote, the House and the Senate had voted for different bills.

At this point, a Senate clerk made a seccond substantive change to the legislation, revising the House-passed text to reflect the original Senate-passed legislation.

As part of the transmittal to the President, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and President pro tem of the Senate Ted Stevens signed a statement attesting that the legislation had been passed by both the House and the Senate. These leaders signed this statement despite the fact that the Republican leadership knew this was not true.

On February 8, the President signed the bill. The version the President signed is the version that reflected the Senate-passed amendment, not the House-passed text.

Well, this is SOP for the Republicans, isn't it? Everything is here, from incompetence, to secrecy, to lying, to trashing the Constitution for naked partisanship. Even the Rovian theory that close voting margins are good (216-214) is here. And even Parlimentary government--"We're all Republicans together," and the institution as a whole (and the opposition) remain uninformed.

But leave aside what how the Republican disrespect for rules and the law has trashed the world's greatest deliberative body, how the Conference Committees write the law in the dead of night with lobbyists looking over their shoulders.

Isn't the situation even more serious? I'm no lawyer, and I don't even play one on TV, but if the Budget bill was not lawfully passed, it would seem to me that everything funded by the Budget Bill is open to legal challenge.

For example--and I really go all a black helicopter "patriot" here, but we live in interesting times--suppose the BATF, operating under this unconstitutional bill, tried to confiscate Vice President Cheney's gun. Could Cheney argue that they had no right to so do, since they and the BATF were funded illegally? Sort of a fruit of the poisonous fiscal tree theory?

Just asking. And speaking of confiscation, there's the IRS...