Our country is in a financial crisis. We have already amassed $37T in debt, and it’s growing at a rate of $1,000,000 every 20 seconds! It’s an amount of money nearly impossible for the human mind to comprehend. Consider this visual: If we were to load a freight train with dollar bills, it would need to be 4,000 miles long, to carry enough money to settle our national debt.
That debt is a financial obligation which is approaching a nation destroying level, and our children are going to be left to pick up the pieces.
Convention of States Action is working with the states, to use their Article V authority to call a convention for the purpose of proposing a Constitutional amendment for fiscal restraint (in addition to amendments for term limits and restraints on federal overreach). Unfortunately, there is significant reluctance to the use of the second clause of Article V.
One of the arguments that opponents (including my own Idaho state Senator) use, is that a convention would be a distraction at the current time. We’ve currently got a President working to bring fiscal sanity to Washington. We should hold off and let him work his magic.
President Trump and his DOGE task force are certainly trying to do that. He recently requested that Congress rescind $9.4B in unnecessary spending. Unfortunately, that’s less than 1 percent of the spending cut that would be necessary to balance this year’s budget! Yet nearly 50 percent of our congressional leadership howled at the unreasonableness of it. Clearly, they have a distorted view of “reasonable” if they think borrowing over a trillion dollars a year, that they have no intention of paying back, represents sound fiscal decision making.
Unfortunately, the President’s narrow victory with the rescission bill has simply triggered another form of resistance. Senate Democrats and Republicans are working together under the leadership Senator Susan Collins – the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair – to incorporate language in next year’s spending bill, limiting the President’s executive discretion. Their plan is to stipulate that the President must spend every penny which they appropriate, whether he needs it or not. Clearly overspending is a bipartisan addiction.
If the Appropriations Committee succeeds, it will not only tell the President which functions he must execute (which is their constitutional right), but will also prohibit him from finding efficient ways to get it done (which is an abuse of the taxpayers).
Opponents of an Article V convention are insisting that we trust the President to bring fiscal sanity back to Washington, while at the same time Congress is investigating ways to prevent him from doing so.
Our current fiscal path is unsustainable, and the music will eventually stop. We simply don’t know what level of destitution and anarchy will follow.
The political pendulum will continue to swing. Only a constitutional amendment can provide long-term stability. America needs a fiscal restraint amendment to empower the responsible politicians, and keep the irresponsible ones in check. But asking Congress to propose such an amendment is asking addicts to outlaw that which they crave – other people’s money. Hoping that Congress does that is a recipe for disappointment.
We are a self-governed republic. We have an obligation to ensure sustainable governance. That our elected representatives fail to represent our interests, does not absolve us of our responsibility – especially when other paths exist to meet it.
We can ensure future prosperity for our children by insisting that our various states accept their constitutional duty to call a convention, thus beginning the process needed to re-impose accountability on our federal government.
If our states fail in that duty, it is our children and grandchildren who will eventually suffer the piper’s bill.
Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to American Thinker, The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
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