I write for two reasons. The first continues ten years attempting to put a serious idea reforming the management of the Federal budget. The second details my universally unrecognized attempt over this time to capture the attention of anyone who might care. Having exhausted my attempts to interest the Republican Party, I offer this idea to the American people at large.
The Federal Debt
Since the foundation of American Republic, there has been great concern among those who advocate for self-government, that Republics have no innate restraint against profligate spending. This proclivity for wanton spending accelerated madly since the Reagan Administration, and may already have reached the tipping point during the younger Bush administration.
From the Reagan years to the end of the Obama administration, a period where I followed this problem in great numerical detail, the budget deficit seemed to grow by approximately 5% per year. Although this number might not arouse much suspicion for being ruinous to the Republic, that is an inherently unsustainable pattern. According to Laurance J. Peter, all things which are unsustainable must end. Ruination of the financial underpinning of states is a most common cause of their demise. Their money becomes worthless, being no longer backed by the assets of the government but hopeful pretense. Sooner or later, hope runs out.
Growth of indebtedness by 5% per year dissolves half of the intrinsic value of the government’s currency away every 15 years or so. Although the dilution of the money is waved away as “inflation,” it is not due to demand and productivity matters, which tend to be deflationary. The inflation comes from the perverse reward to governments that if they spend more than they gather, and do this by watering down the currency. Being the first issuer of the watered-down currency, the extra, phony money, is priced at the previous valuation. As it trickles through the hands of the economy, the currency reaches a lower, watered-down value. The end-of-the-liners, the consumers of goods, experience it as “inflation,” an enfeeblement of the currency in its ability to obtain things wanted. This is called inflation; it should be considered the inevitable law of government. All governments discover this magical habit.
At one time, the pound sterling was worth a pound of sterling silver. That amount is approximately $300 worth of silver, or £240, a loss by dilution of 99.6% of the pound’s value.
The increase in the Federal indebtedness is equal to money printed by the Treasury, arising from nothing but ink and linen paper, to account for the shortfall between income and expenses of the Federal Government. Republicans tend to tax a little less and counterfeit money a little more; Democrats, the other way around. But nobody really cares about the bleeding out of value of Federal currency.
Exhortation of thrift.
The political parties used to be troubled by this tendency; or rather, their constituents were. The Republican Party at one time moreso than the Democrats called to prudence, thrift and small government. These values eroded among the American public because inflation of any sort manifests itself as a stimulus to the economy, in a like way that doing meth imbues one with the sense of renewed energy. If the money is becoming worthless at a significant pace, there is no value to save money and invest it. Rather, if one spends it as rapidly as it is earned, more goods can be obtained today than tomorrow.
Similarly, if it earns nothing to save, but yields an enhancement of personal prosperity if one borrows now and spends the borrowings now, one enriches one’s lifestyle. The system is rigged against savings, and towards spending.
Stopping the bleeding.
The time of the Founders was one of unparalleled pessimism towards the actions of individuals in enacting self-governance. Rather than believing that a self-regulated country could, well, regulate itself, Lord Acton and others based the goal of fair self-governance upon disagreement and struggle.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. John Dalberg Lord Acton
To bar persons from attaining an impermissible goal in a democracy, one must somehow frustrate the majority of persons in pursuit of that purpose. To prevent the rewarding incentive of dilution of the currency, one must make it unpleasant enough for the great authorities to engage in its pursuit.
The Constitutional Amendment
PROPOSED AMENDMENT
TO ARTICLE I SECTION 8 US CONSTITUTION
AS THE 28TH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States and quantify a limit to the indebtedness of the United States; but no act increasing the limit to the indebtedness of the United States shall take effect, without endorsement by ratification, by a simple majority of the Legislatures of the several States;
It’s about 42 words or so. and quantify a limit to the indebtedness of the United States; but no act increasing the limit to the indebtedness of the United States shall take effect, without endorsement by ratification, by a simple majority of the Legislatures of the several States;
What this amendment would do is quite straightforward.
There is no rule that the debt is “limited,” except by consensus of Congress. Whenever they meet to tug upwards the “debt limit,” it is merely a quantity agreed upon by a prior Congress. This amendment would create the debt limit as a governmental absolute.
No act…shall take effect means that any decree or executive order or consensus of any sort is not legally in force until something occurs.
endorsement … by a simple majority of the Legislatures of the several States creates a novel structure in Federal law in which the Federal law requires endorsement by at least 25 states.
endorsement by ratification.. How are the States to sign off on the law increasing the debt limit? Exactly in the manner by which States endorse constitutional amendments. There is no need for explanation of the mechanism here. It is the same as endorsing an amendment to the Constitution.
Congress might panic, and say - how can a future default be avoided, given the complexity of the requirements? Well, if a genuine emergency arose, the states could endorse an increase to the debt ceiling within a few days - if the States believed that an emergency existed.
The power of self-regulation by Congress would be handed to the various States, who might be under greater pressure by their citizens to tighten up the purse strings. A far broader and less easily led group of politicos would be depended on to pop up the budget ceiling. Chaos would give rise to thrift and prudence.
Drafting of the Amendment
I’ve been working on a version of this amendment since the days of the Obama presidency. Nobody else has worked with me on it, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t cadge the idea, accidentally, from some other source. It’s my idea. The language has been continuously polished for about 15 years or so. That’s not necessary a good thing.
I’d like to dedicate it to Paul Tsongas, a brilliant Massachusetts Democrat who was a founding member of the Concord Coalition, an honest-to-God bipartisan attempt to control Federal spending to avoid the ruination of the Republic.
Paul ran against Bill Clinton during the primaries, tied with him in New Hampshire. He was a political blend of the best of Bill Clinton and Mike Dukakis, with a strong fiscal conservative streak. I’ve always thought of Paul along with Bobby and Jack, as the what could have been boys.
I thought that the idea would be uncomfortable to Democrats, so I laid it before every Republican I could think of on a Federal, State and local level who might at least enjoy the idea.
Are there any Honest Republicans?
Every month or so over the last 15 years, I’ve sent out a copy of this idea to whomever I could tag. It’s only 42 words or so - tweetable. It existed before Twitter existed. It’s short enough for a tweet, even if you add on “ Holy Shit! What an idea!”
BTW, the First Amendment in all its glory is Tweetable indeed. About half of the Bill of Rights amendments are. The Ninth and Tenth together are just over the character limit, and could be trimmed to fit. Good poetry, Mr. Madison.
But the boilerplate letter from me introducing the idea, the placement into I,8 of the Constitution and the text alone, has been sent to many Republicans from my home address.
And I have received a response. Not. From Nobody.
You’d think that someone ranging from the Speaker of the Arkansas House, Tennessee too, the Libertarian Party candidate Billy Weld; every Speaker of the House or Minority Republican Leader of the Federal House of Representatives; Senate, too - John Boehner and Aynrandian Paul Ryan; Marco Rubio, Adam Kinsinger, Liz Cheney and her Pop - not even a whisper. I did have one political group get back to me, but they were more interested in my using this amendment as a stalking horse to meet with my State’s former Governor, so that the group could wheedle cash out of him.
I give up.
That’s why I’m putting it on Substack. It’s a conservative-sounding idea, but for what passes today for conservatives, I’m not too frightened. I haven’t asked Marjorie Taylor Green or “George Santos” or anyone from the Trump Administration. If George Will and Charles Krauthammer don’t have enough intellectual steam to puff back by mail, I’ll put money on it that the Trump henchlings wouldn’t read it.
So, here it is to you. I’m handing it off like scraping the extra mashed potatoes off the plate in a lunchroom line. Ain’t nobody cottons to this stuff.
But I can say, pretty sure, that there’s not one brain in the field of RINOs out there who could recognize a Robert Taftian conservative idea. It’s less important to the Party than how to shield your face against teargas.
Any comments you’ve got, put them here. Remember, that cuts you to the front of the line of Republican thinkers like Orrin Hatch and Paul Ryan. Maybe I can send you a hat or something.
Thanks for being a radical, and reading something about politics that’s not mean or dishonest. I sure appreciate that.
Great effort, thanks for your work, and apologies that we're all idiots. I can totally relate to your desperate hollering in to the void of empty space.
I have a secret plan which will fix all this. I'm 70. I have a get out of jail free card. Seniority has it's benefits....