In 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that the one thing missing from the newly minted Constitution was some kind of limit on federal debt:
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.
Now that Washington has kicked the can on our out-of-control spending yet again, isn’t it time to reconsider Jefferson’s wish?
It may be easier than previously thought, through an ingenious spin on the balanced budget amendment (BBA). Compact for America, a Texas-based nonprofit advised by the Goldwater Institute’s Nick Dranias, is advancing an agreement among the states — called an “interstate compact” — to transform the constitutional amendment process into a “turn-key” operation. That is, a single interstate compact can consolidate all the state action involved in the Article V process: the application to Congress for an amendment convention, delegate appointments and instructions, selection of the convention location and rules, and ultimate ratification. It then consolidates all the corresponding congressional action, both the call for the convention and ratification referral, into a single omnibus concurrent resolution.
The secret to combining so much in just two overarching pieces of legislation is the use of contingent effective dates — also known as “conditional enactments” or “tie-barring” — to ensure that each piece of legislation only goes “live” at the right time. The Compact for America is thus designed to cut the time and resources needed for states to originate and ratify a BBA, making it possible to achieve in the next six months, with a symbolic target date of July 4, 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment