Posted on 03/24/2025 4:24:22 AM PDT by Jacquerie
Fixed.
“...Now, get President Trump aboard a Convention of States!...”
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I also wish this would happen.
My pleasure.
There may never be a more opportune time to finally reassert We the People are in charge. The average American sees that judges rewrite our Constitution at-will and without repercussions. Congress and exec branch denizens exist for their own enrichment. The question isn’t so much about amending, but rather, “who” does the amending?
Get our MAGA President on board and all good things are possible.
Once a COS is held and closes without “running away,” it could open the door to repeal of the horrid 16th and 17th Amendments and other fabulous reforms.
That's the big fear of many. The Constitution itself was a "runaway" congress meeting to fix the Article of Confederation. The Colonial governments put a tight leash on the Confederation Congress. They authorized the summer 1787 meeting in Philadelphia “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation” to make them “adequate to the exigencies of the Union.”
Cracks appeared fast. Smaller states balked at population-based representation, fearing domination by larger states like Virginia and Pennsylvania. This led to William Paterson’s New Jersey Plan, a counterproposal keeping a unicameral Congress with equal state votes, merely enhancing federal powers. The debate revealed a deeper divide: tweaking the Articles wouldn’t fix the core issue of a powerless central government.
The radicals (esp. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton) saw the Articles as a dead end and it was off to the races.
“...Once a COS is held and closes without “running away,”
it could open the door to repeal of
the horrid 16th and 17th Amendments...”
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I believe there a quite a few items that “We The People”
would support that have NO CHANCE of ever being proposed by Congress.
-Term limits for members of the House and Senate.
-Repeal of the 16th (replace income tax with a national sales tax).
-Balanced budget amendment (could be combined with the above).
-Repeal of the 17th (popular vote for Senators).
Congress didn’t “authorize” the 1787 convention. There was no power in the Articles one way or the other.
The state’s 1787 convention was going to happen regardless of what Congress did or did not do.
As for “the big fear of many,” neither the 1787 convention nor a COS had/has the power to amend the Articles or the Constitution.
That power is apparently and effectively reserved to judges unless We the People reassert our authority.
Fixed it.
Instead of wasting money on foreign wars, we should use that money to beef up our military capabilities.
Only once in American history has the Federal debt been zero. That was under Andrew Jackson. It should be obvious by now our National Debt is a systemic problem. Milton Friedman showed that the cure is a Balanced Budget Amendment. Only using Article V is going to make that happen. There is no way Congress will limit its ability to spend money.
All that will do is raise taxes, slow the economy and increase the debt.
Lots of States have Balanced Budget Amendments. Did any of your predictions come true for them?
States can’t print money like the feds. The Democrats will never cut spending and the Republicans will never stop raising taxes. Disaster beyond belief.
Here is an opinion page submission of mine from back in 2011.
BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT NOT NEEDED
There is a law on the books that states that the Federal government can not spend more than it takes in. This law was adopted in 1981, Public Law 95-435, Section 7. It’s still valid, so why do our elected officials in Congress not obey that law?
That raises a number of other questions. Is there a penalty clause for violations of the law? Can every politician who voted in favor of violating the law be punished? Is a violation a misdemeanor or a felony? Who would be in charge of prosecuting the offenders?
We the people are expected to obey the law; why won’t we hold our servants (who have, regrettably, morphed into masters) to the same standard?
Finally, since the law is already being ignored, what makes us think that an amendment would not also be ignored? The Second Amendment being a prime example in New Jersey; what part of “shall not be infringed” do they not understand?
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