All I ever have heard from them is cutting waste, or foreign aid, or benefits for “illegals” or such. If they’re serious about balancing the budget, they have to specify draconian cuts and/or massive tax increases. But why do that when their base believes that we spend so much on foreign aid or immigrants?
You say that like it’s not already happening.
Google “corporate welfare”.
I meant payments to the rich directly.
As a matter of fact, the process was utilized exactly once before, and we do know exactly what came of it. Or rather, the equivalent process was done in the days of the Articles of Confederation. They called for a Constitutional Convention to “amend” the Articles to fix some of the problems that were turning up (like the states getting into escalating tariffs and trade wars against one another, and problems with getting states to pony up the money for national defense).
So what did those radical seditious delegates (whom we now commonly call the “Founding Fathers”) do? They scrapped the whole damn Articles and wrote a new defining document from scratch! They called it the “Constitution”, and with some persuasive essay-writing, got it passed.
The process has never been tried since, because as thorny_locust and Buck_Godot point out, it opens up a free-for-all and nobody knows what could come of it. As the precedent proves, they could darn well scrap the whole thing and start from scratch again.
I’m sure when Republicans are in power they won’t reverse this and spend like crazy. You can take Lindsay Graham’s WordTM on that.
That and $7 will buy you a venti hot chocolate at Starbucks.
They’ll spend every last dollar and then some, just like they always do.
this sounds like something ive seen online in places like facebook called "convention of states "
“I support the Convention of States Project; a national effort to call a convention under Article V of the United States Constitution, restricted to proposing amendments that will impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress.” is the preamble of their “petition”
…with current red-state recipients of these programs grandfathered in, of course.
I think it’s worth noting which political party actually managed to balance the budget and eliminate the deficit.
Then the Republicans won an election and went on a spending spree.
Since the provision has never been invoked, there’s literally no precedent for how an Article V convention would work within the framework of the Constitution. It’s a complete unknown. States that have submitted applications to Congress for an Article V convention have attempted to limit the topic that the convention may address (Oklahoma’s balanced budget amendment application as an example). But some legal scholars believe that the convention could not be bounded in this way.
There is at least one change that an Article V convention could not make and still be operating within the authority of the Constitution – the Constitution expressly states that no amendment may deny a state it’s equal representation in the Senate without that state’s consent.
There is absolutely no value in picking apart the intricacies of what Graham is proposing, be it balanced budget or constitutional amendment. It’s pure political point scoring and getting his face in the news and on cable tv. Many of his followers and MAGA types will, of course, eat it up and make it the wedge issue de jour. Best to ignore him.
What does a term limit on federal government officials mean? It sounds like a limitation on how long a civil servant can remain employed with the federal government. Who wants that and why?
Again, he’s just engaging in the time-honored GOP tradition of makin’ sh*t up to give Tucker something to whinge about.
I know. Like if Republicans in the Senate and the House are such big believers in term limits, they could start by not making a career out of being in Congress.
I’m not at all sure that’s possible. Article V doesn’t seem to say anything about restricting what such a convention can propose.
I suppose the Supreme Court would have to decide it. But what if part of what the convention wanted to propose affected the Court itself?
More likely the Court would say it’s a political question, just like it doesn’t intervene in the internal workings of Congress, or the guarantee of state republican government. The check on the convention wouldn’t be the courts, but the states who have to ratify.
What ever made you think that enacting a large enough majority’s agenda was not the defining feature of democracy?
Did I say that? What I said (or at least strongly implied) was that I wouldn’t like it.
Another defining feature of democracy, at least as we understand it, is that any government is dependent on the consent of the governed. This raises a quandary: If a large enough majority does not consent to a democratic government, can they discard democracy? It seems to be a self-nullifying argument.
If Republicans gain a substantial majority by anti-democratic means, it may never be possible for any opposing majority to topple them. The very defining feature of democracy could self-obliterate.
A separate rebuttal has to do with the dispute over a large majority: There is plenty of evidence that Republicans are ever-more invested in winning elections through voter suppression, intimidation, and post-election sabotage. I doubt they could ever win a sufficient “majority” this way to enact draconian Constitutional changes – that discussion is purely hypothetical, I think.
That said, I think my comment should be interpreted as an implied call to action for Democrats, liberals, progressives to make sure this can never happen. If Republicans take over in the way they seem to be working towards, maybe we Americans, collectively, aren’t fit to live in a democracy after all.
Yep. Dubya campaigned on his “It’s your money, we’re going to give it back to you” promise. Which I always likened to Tim Burton’s “Batman” where the Joker promises everyone free money, just before he releases the poison gas.
Once he was elected there was 9/11, and war in the Middle East, and the huge expansion of the Federal government (Homeland Security, TSA, etc), and in general spending money like the proverbial drunken sailor. Coupled of course with more tax cuts for the rich.