Mark Watson

While much has already been said and written about the staggering $1.42 trillion budget deficit on President Obama’s watch for 2009, the underlying premise for most of the talkers and writers has been factually incorrect. The talkers and writers constantly refer to Obama’s budget deficit when it isn’t the president’s deficit at all.

The woman you need to speak with.

The truth is that the deficit is not the Obama deficit any more than deficits in the previous 16 years were George W. Bush’s or Bill Clinton’s.

Deficit spending in the Obama and previous administrations may result from suggestions and lobbying efforts by the president, but the simple, unfiltered, undeniable constitutional fact is that not one single penny can ever be spent by the U. S. government unless, and until, the U. S. House of Representatives initially authorizes it.

This is not a hard concept to understand, but apparently most journalists and pundits weren’t paying attention when teachers explained the Constitution and its separation of powers. For as long as I’ve been paying attention, news and opinion writers have accepted and repeated the canard about presidential budgets. To be charitable, since public schools no longer deem it necessary to instruct students on the roles of the three branches of government, most journalists are probably simply ignorant of Article I, Sections 7 and 9, of the U. S. Constitution.

Simply stated, the Constitution empowers Congress to raise taxes and spend money. The president can agree or disagree with congressional decisions regarding taxing and spending, but he has no authority under the Constitution to spend any money unless Congress authorizes him to do so.

As such, today’s budget deficit is not Obama’s deficit, it is Nancy Pelosi’s deficit. As Speaker of the House, Pelosi controls what money is spent by the government. All budgets, including the monstrosity wafting from Washington, D.C., is the Nancy Pelosi budget, just as the two previous budgets have been.

Bush may have been president in 2007 and 2008, but the budgets were Pelosi’s, just as the previous six budgets were Dennis Hastert’s.

Had this Constitutional reality been appropriately reported by the media, Americans would have had the appropriate perspective on the source of the economic problems facing the country in last year’s presidential election.

The media’s failure to accurately describe this country’s deficit as belonging to Pelosi, with an assist from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, empowers them to focus their budget attention on the president rather than where it belongs.

Pelosi and Reid should have to explain why they continue to legislate larger and larger federal expenditures. Maybe the media should require them to defend the growing budget deficits as well.

But since the media does not bother to understand the separation of powers articulated in the Constitution, its audience continues to focus on a president rather than on Pelosi and Reid when obscene budget deficits threaten the country’s sovereignty.

When Pelosi or Reid complained about deficits in the last two years of Bush’s administration, they were rarely challenged as to their roles in causing them. Free from scrutiny over their shepherding the country into economic turmoil, Pelosi and Reid were able to concentrate their vitriol against Bush’s budget deficit during last year’s campaign.

Since Pelosi’s cheerleading antics over the country’s current quarterback have been on nauseating display, do not hold your breath waiting for her to rail against Obama’s budget deficit, particularly since it is really her deficit.

For those interested, Article I, Section 7, of the U. S. Constitution reads as follows: 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.

Section 9 says that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.

Budget architects – hold on to your foundation!

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