I keep hearing this statement: the Federal government has not passed a budget since Obama was elected. Fox news says so. CNN says so. Well, if they say it on TV, it must be true. You can’t lie on TV. How do I know? I heard it on TV.
I’m not sure but I think the implication is supposed to be that President Obama is sitting in the Oval Office spending money right and left that Congress hasn’t authorized him to spend. Therefore, the budget deficits and the national debt problem must have been created by Obama. Or maybe the implication is that Congress is incompetent. Do we really need an email campaign to make Congress look incompetent? Aren’t Senators and Congressmen doing a good enough job of that all by themselves?
The President has Constitutional authority to spend money only in the amount and for the purposes that Congress has authorized. In recent times, whenever we get near the start of a new fiscal year we begin to hear dire warnings: if we don’t pass a new budget by such-and-such date, the U.S. government will default on its debts. And that is exactly what would happen. Without Congressional authorization to spend money, the Federal government would simply shut down.
And yet, it hasn’t shut down. The reason it hasn’t is because Congress has authorized the government to continue spending. Every dollar the Federal government is spending today, every dollar spent yesterday, every dollar spent last month and last year and so on back to the beginning of the Republic, was authorized by Congress.
I can hear you guys now, “But Congress hasn’t passed a real budget – those bills were continuing resolutions and consolidated appropriations and supplemental this-or-that, not real budgets.” I hear you. In other words, Congress has instructed the President regarding how much he must spend, when he must spend it, and what he must spend it on, but they haven’t provided him a budget. Excuse me if I don’t see the distinction.
No doubt some of you have heard of the duck test, which goes “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”
If Congress passes a bill that authorizes the President to spend a stated amount of money for a stated period of time for a stated purpose, then I don’t care what words you put at the top of the bill; according to the duck test, it is some kind of budget. It might be a budget for the Defense Department; it might be a budget for the Commerce Department; it might be a budget for Education – but it’s still a budget. And if Congress passes this type of bill for each department and agency of the government, then we have a de facto Federal budget and we’re just arguing over semantics.
The Fiscal Year 2013 budget request was submitted to Congress by Barack Obama on February 13, 2012. At this date, March 1, government is funded through 3/27/13 by a continuing appropriations act, Public Law 112-175 enacted on 9/28/12 and subsequent disaster assistance supplementals. Details at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app13.html
The Fiscal Year 2012 budget request was submitted to Congress by Barack Obama on February 14, 2011, and was enacted in November and December, 2011, as P.L. (Public Law) 112-55, P.L. 112-74 and P.L. 112-77. Prior to passage of the budget, government was funded by continuing appropriations acts. Details at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app12.html
The Fiscal Year 2011 budget request was submitted to Congress by Barack Obama on February 1, 2010, and was enacted in April, 2011, as P.L. 112-8 and P.L. 112-10. Prior to passage of the budget, government was funded by continuing appropriations acts. Details at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app11.html
The Fiscal Year 2010 budget request (the first Obama budget) was submitted to Congress by Barack Obama in February, 2009, and was enacted as a series of appropriations acts passed on different dates. Details at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app10.html
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