Amend the Constitution to control federal spending

Amend the Constitution to control federal spending

WASHINGTON - DECEMBER 15: Ethan Kasnett, an 8th grade student at the Lab School in Washington, DC, views the original constitution after a ceremony unveiling the people's choice of the top ten most influential documents that shaped the United States of America at the National Archives December 15, 2003 in Washington, DC. The event and vote were co-sponsored by The People's Vote, the National Archives and Records Administration, National History Day, and U.S. News & World Report. Among the records chosen were the Declaration of Independence at number one and the Constitution at number two. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images) (Brendan Smialowski/GETTY IMAGES)

By George F. Will,  Published: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 09, 8:05 PM ET 

From the Goldwater Institute, the fertile frontal lobe of the conservative movement’s brain, comes an innovative idea that is gaining traction in Alaska, Arizona and Georgia, and its advocates may bring it to at least 35 other state legislatures. It would use the Constitution’s Article V to move the nation back toward the limited government the Constitution’s Framers thought their document guaranteed.

The Compact for America is the innovation of the Goldwater Institute’s Nick Dranias, who proposes a constitutional convention carefully called under Article V to enact abalanced-budget amendmentwritten precisely enough to preclude evasion by the political class. This class has powerful and permanent incentives for deficit spending, which delivers immediate benefits to constituents while deferring a significant portion of the benefits’ costs. Here’s what the compact’s amendment would stipulate:

Total federal government outlaysshall not exceed receipts unless the excess of outlays is financed exclusively by debt, which initially shall be authorized to be 105 percent of outstanding debt on the date the amendment is ratified. Congress may increase the authorized debt only if a majority of state legislatures approve an unconditional, single-subject measure proposing the amount of such increase. Whenever outstanding debt exceeds 98 percent of the set limit, the president shall designate for impoundment specific expenditures sufficient to keep debt below the authorized level. The impoundment shall occur in 30 days unless Congress designates an alternative impoundment of the same or greater amount. Any bill for a new or increased general revenue tax shall require a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress — except for a bill that reduces or eliminates an existing tax exemption, deduction or credit, or that “provides for a new end-user sales tax which would completely replace every existing income tax levied by” the U.S. government.

GALLERY

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Now, leave aside questions about this tax policy, or about the wisdom of constitutionalizing any tax policy. Do you believe a balanced-budget amendment is a required response to the nature of today’s politics and governance, now that courts neglect to do their duty in enforcing Congress’s adherence to the Constitution’s enumeration of its powers? If so, the compact’s amendment is remarkably resistant to evasion.

Congress, which relishes deficit spending, would not, unilaterally and unpressured, send this amendment to the states for ratification. Hence theGoldwater Institute’s recourse to Article V.