Posted on 04/08/2015 6:07:38 AM PDT by cotton1706
Federalism is defined as the division of power between a strong central government and equally strong regional governments called states. Nowhere is that principle displayed more prominently than in the language of Article V of the U.S. Constitution.
Article V gives Congress and the states the authority to propose amendments. The ideal balance between central and regional governments has been replaced with an overbearing, out-of-control, runaway national government at the expense of the states. It’s the state of affairs that George Mason and other Framers of the Constitution feared might happen. It’s why they insisted that language of the Constitution include a provision giving state legislatures equal standing with Congress to propose amendments that would hold an unresponsive Congress accountable.
When you travel with directions from a GPS and make a wrong turn, you’re immediately notified that the system is “recalculating.” The Constitution gives us GPS directions. Article V gives us the option to recalculate. Have we made a wrong turn as a nation? Have we drifted from the original intent of the Framers? Have we incrementally allowed the federal government to grow at the expense of the states? Allowing the fear of the unknown to maintain the status quo is not an option we can afford to embrace.
Why an Article V amendment convention? It is the constitutional remedy for the states to express the will of the people. The only way to place limits on the enumerated power of borrowing money is with a constitutional amendment. There are two methods to propose amendments — Congress or state legislatures. How much longer can we wait on Congress to balance the budget on its own? What is the likelihood Congress will propose language to place limits on its borrowing power?
(Excerpt) Read more at conventionofstates.com ...
How much longer can we wait on Congress to balance the budget on its own?
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Never going to happen. Congress see’s its primary role as spending taxpayer money.
Debt and entitlements are a run away train:
"Then it comes to be that the soothing light
at the end of your tunnel,
Is just a freight train coming your way."
Rep. Banz spoke to our group recently about this subject, including the history of previous amendment efforts, the mechanisms provided and the procedures to invoke them. It was a most informative presentation. I am much less concerned that this Convention of the States would be a runaway free-for-all than I was before. It may well be that we have no other peaceful recourse.
Article V ping.
Ditto that!!
We continued to improve the republic until 1913.
Here is the big picture, and why the 17th Amendment must be repealed.
... or to repeal the 17th Amendment, or to limit the number of terms members can serve, or to let 2/3 of state legislatures overturn federal laws, etc.
PING!
I am asking this as a serious question, although it sound smarmy
They aren’t following the Constitution now, why will they all of a sudden follow the Constitution if we pass these amendments?
I asked that same question a couple days ago on a different thread( same topic). Not sure anyone actually had an answer.
That's what new and carefully honed language is intended to stop.
“I am asking this as a serious question, although it sound smarmy
They aren’t following the Constitution now, why will they all of a sudden follow the Constitution if we pass these amendments?”
As an honest answer, I think structural changes they won’t be able to ignore. For example, congressmen can’t just serve for three year terms if they want to. They have to serve for two. They can’t get around that provision of the constitution. The president still appoints supreme court justices and the senate must confirm. And the senate serves for six years. These are structural parts of the constitution that cannot be gotten around. If an amendment is written in such a way as to be ironclad, those elected will have no choice but to obey it. How that’s done, and how proposed amendments are to be worded, that is up to the convention.
Really not following your train of thought here, but ok
My point was that not ALL parts of the constitution are being ignored or disobeyed, because most structural provisions can’t be gotten around by trickery. Amendments can be written in such a way as to be as ironclad as those provisions.
Or any of a bunch of other things that need doing...
but we have those in the Constitution already.
I know it is cynical, and I think we do need to do something, however, without a moral people who obey laws, the text of the law is meaningless.
There is , to use algore’s verbage, no controlling legal authority to make Congress obey the Constitution.
All there is, is the electorate. And it takes a minimum of 2 years to make any correction to bad law or bad obedience to the law.
It would be toothless to make these changes unless we install checks and balances not presently in the Constitution. Term limits is about as far as I would go in amending the Constitution, even though I agree with the principles of the Liberty Amendments.
We have no way to ensure Congress follows the Constitution but voting them out. And in today’s world, too many things happen too quickly, and too many things dont get changed back to what is good. And an article 5 convention wont change that, for the language of the Constitution is not what is at fault, but the morality of the elected and the electorate.
Rule #1: The states are always right.
Rule #2: When the states are wrong, see Rule #1.
Next, while I would support a balanced budget amendment, balancing the federal budget is not the main problem with the budget imo. The real problem is unconstitutional federal taxing and spending to buy votes from low-information voters.
One remedy, imo, is to enumerate the language of the Supreme Court’s clarification of Congress’s limited power to lay taxes into the Constitution, Congress basically prohibited from laying taxes in the name of anything that it cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Based on the Supreme Court’s clarification of Congress’s limited power to appropriate taxes, here is a rough estimate for what taxpayers need to pay Congress annually in order to perform its Section 8-limited power duties.
Given that the plurality of clauses in Congress’s Section 8-limited powers deal with defense, and given that the Department of Defense budget for 2015 was $500+ billion, I will generously round up the annual price tag of the federal government to the taxpayers as $1 trillion (but probably much less).
In other words, the corrupt media, including Obama guard dog Fx News, shouldn’t be reporting multi-trillion annual federal budgets without mentioning the Supreme Court’s clarification of Congress’s limited power to lay taxes in budget discussions.
The reason that we now have an unconstitutionally big, tax-hungry federal government on our backs is this imo. When the Founding States established the federal Senate, they gave control of the Senate uniquely to state lawmakers. Part of the reason for having state legislatures control the Senate was so that the Senate could kill House appropriations bills which could not be justified under Congress’s Section 8-limited powers, such bills essentially stealing state revenues.
The problem is that the Progressive Movement spooked low-information citizens to pressure state lawmakers to ratify the ill-conceived 17th Amendment (17A). And state lawmakers caved in and ratified 17A, foolishly giving up the voices of the state legislatures in Congress.
So now, after voters elect their federal senators, they go home and watch football while corrupt senators rob voter’s wallets by working in cahoots with the corrupt House to pass unconstitutional appropriations bills, bills which Congress cannot justify under its Section 8-limited powers.
Also, if it wasn’t for 17A, state lawmakers might have built up a 2/3 conservative majority in the Senate by now. This means that Congress could have possibly impeached and booted lawless Obama from the Oval Office by now.
So the first step to “balancing the federal budget” imo is to make 17A disappear, then to amend the Constitution with the suggestions in this post.
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