A bill is first brought by the attention of citizens to the Senate, The House of Representatives is the only house that can introduce revenue and appropriation bills.  The Congress formally introduces other such bills.  From there, it is brought to committee which is responsible for filtering out unnecessary bills. It normally takes a while, and most bills die in committee.  Afterwards, it goes to the floor where it is up for debate. The House has limited time, but the Senate does not. Once that is complete, the entire process completely restarts again with the other house of Congress.  Later, the conference committee comes together to come up with an agreement, or compromise. Lastly, they send the compromised bill to the president. The president proceeds to take action and does one of three things.  The president either signs the bill and it becomes a law, pocket veto's the bill, or formally veto's it.