Other Congresses and Administrations, both Democrat and Republican in the past have been able to negotiate and compromise to pass budgets without one side having total dominion of the legislative branch.

Ornstein referred us to the gridlock of 2011 that resulted from the debate over raising the debt ceiling. The budget control act, which was passed to avoid a default on our debt and signed by Obama wasn’t a traditional budget resolution, Ornstein said. But he noted: "That was actually a budget adopted by a president."

Ornstein also noted that during George W. Bush’s presidency, there were years that Democrats in Congress failed to pass joint resolutions.

"To suggest that was Bush not passing a budget would be a misstatement," Ornstein said. He called Romney’s rap on Obama "at best a gross exaggeration."

In his speech, Romney faulted Obama for failing to pass a budget. He was correct that the two times Congress voted on the president’s budget requests, both times they were voted down. But the job of passing a budget resolution is not the president’s. That responsibility falls to Congress, and even then the president doesn’t sign it. As Ellis, our expert, put it: "The president has no role in passing a budget. The president can cajole Congress about passing a budget and advocate for positions and funding levels, but in the end, Congress approves the budget resolution for their own purposes." That’s the difference between this and other claims we’ve rated which blamed Congress for inaction on the budget.

Romney’s statement contains a grain of truth, in that two of Obama’s budget requests failed to pass. But citing those votes leaves a wrong impression -- namely that the votes were anything more than political theater. Romney omitted the more critical information that passing a federal budget is the job of Congress. Given all that, we rate his statement Mostly False.