Part 3 America – The U.S. Constitution comes to the rescue

As the country draws closer to the fiscal cliff, those inside the Beltway are deaf and blind to the damage their spending is doing to the country and to the next generation who will follow us. We must stop them in their tracks before the country goes beyond the point-of- no-return. In about five years the INTEREST ALONE on the national debt will consume the entire amount of individual income taxes collected every year!

by Ed Mattson, via Veterans Today.com:

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series I pointed out that the United States is in trouble. We have a run-a-way government no longer responsible to the people of the country. We witness our elected officials racking up debt with politically motivated handouts to bribe the citizens who continue voting for more of the same We see waste, fraud, and abuse in every department, agency, and program of government; and corporate welfare expenditures conservatively estimated by Reclaim Democracy, a non-profit government watchdog, at more than $150 billion annually.

Can we the people expect the government, which created the mess in Washington, to all of a sudden say, “wait an minute here. . .we need to fix all these problems so the country doesn’t go over the financial cliff”? Well, if you believe in the Tooth Fairy, I’m sure you will believe that those elected saints up in DC are going to jump right on it! That being the case, you probably even have confidence that they have the situation well under control and in no time, the country will be out of the woods. It then wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination that you also believe the President, enabled by the whipped-puppy Congress, can do no wrong. If this is the case, the rest of the discussion here today, will possibly go right over your head.

But for those of us who live in the real world, we haven’t forgotten the words of our dubious leader, “if you like you healthcare insurance, you can keep it. . . if you like your doctor, you can keep him. . .oh yes, and those problems with the Veterans Hospitals. . . they will have my highest priority!” And about those landslide elections we had in 2014, where we sent a whole herd of new legislators into the den of temptation (I think referring to Washington as the “den of temptation” is appropriate; à la, “lead us not into temptation” – the Lord’s Prayer). . . I think that while our effort was noble, they will have little effect on the entrenched status quo of the career politicians’ good ol’ boys club.

To the Doubting Thomases amongst us, who just don’t get the picture, the numbers don’t lie: Obama and Debt

As of Sept. 30, 2013, the federal government’s total debt stood at $16.74 trillion (it’s $18.143 trillion this morning and growing), and with current interest rate at around 2.4%, it costs the U.S. taxpayers about $400 billion in interest payments. Now be reminded, the U.S. government is paying historically low rates on its debt with the FED printing money at breakneck speed, keeping rates artificially low. If the rates were at a more traditional level of say 5.7-6% (and surely that date will inevitably come), we can easily see that annual interest on the debt could be well over $1 trillion; nearly 1/2 of all personal income taxes collected.

Using 2013 federal spending figures of $3.5 trillion, this would have left only $2.5 trillion to fund the rest of the government. With the interest at 2.4% we only went in the hole $642 billion in 2013. But not to worry say the politicians, they are watching it. . .right. Federal spending is expected to grow to nearly $6 trillion by 2023, and in all probability, interest rates will be at least 6-7%, meaning all personal income taxes collected and more, will go to just paying the interest on the debt! Folks, these guys are not in denial; They are NUTS! Spending all personal income tax revenue just to pay the interest of the debt, will leave no money to run the government!

This is why our children will have no future at the rate government is running us into the ground.

So what are we concerned citizens supposed to do? In Part 1 of this series I pointed to the three choices that one would see as a way out: Voting in new elected officials, armed insurrection, or simply accept our fate and go over the falls to oblivion as other great nations have done in the past.

The first opportunity to halt the budget calamity by the new Congress was a vote for more of the same. And now we see headed our way, business as usual with Congress seemingly giving up the ghost on Obamacare, even though a wide majority of Americans oppose it – even more Americans today are uninsured than when the bill was passed. Additionally, we see the inability to secure our energy independence with Obama vetoing the Keystone Pipeline bill; and we see an acceptance of presidential overreach on the immigration amnesty issue by a hapless Congress, which doesn’t have the cajones to stand-up for the 73% of the American public who strongly reject the President’s action.

From sources quoted by The Daily Caller, “the federal government will spend $484 million, if not more, and expand the federal workforce by 3,100 in order to implement Obama’s new executive amnesty plans”. But that doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg. Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector estimates that “the government will expend $2 trillion over the next five decades in additional benefits and increased government expenditures devoted to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ) and DAPA (Deferred Action for Parental Accountability) recipients”. And let’s not forget that nearly every family included in this wild-eyed, insane immigration/amnesty program, will qualify for the LITC (Low Income Tax Credit) from Uncle Sam when income tax season rolls around, stealing billions of dollars more from We the People. . .and we haven’t even calculated the costs to the states with this tax-give-away program.

We the taxpayers are, in essence, paying people to come to this country illegally. . .are we really this stupid?

Armed insurrection would look to be our only remedy had not our Founding Fathers foreseen the future. While those in power don’t seem dissuaded by the limited power of government clearly spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, and since Obama himself, and the Supreme Court have a very low option in this fabulous document, along with the constraints that were clearly intended to minimize government’s role in our lives, it is imperative We the People fall back on an Article Five of the States to take back our government.

What the heck is an Article Five Convention of States? Article Five of the U.S. Constitution states:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

All 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been adopted through actions of congress. There has been no effort in history whereby the country was in such peril that the people felt it was necessary to utilize this one safety valve the Founders felt necessary to put in the constitution when government would get to the point that, to save our democratic republic, we would need an alternative solution to wrest control from our elected officials. In short, it is a way that we the people can constitutionally put our house in order, without resorting to armed confrontation.

The “Yeah, but” arguments from the those willing to stay the course or believe in the Tooth Fairy that things will work out, are looking at the constitutional crisis the country is facing, through rose colored glasses. We have lost half the voters who no longer exercise the most valuable right we have in maintaining our democratic process which is the right to vote. They eagerly volunteer, “What difference does it make; both political parties are the same”; and any such attempt for The People to amend the Constitution, will surely end up in a “runaway convention”. They speak as if only the politicians in Washington have enough smarts to put together amendments to fix the problems we are facing.

Are you kidding me? It is the Washington politicians that have gotten the country into the mess it is in. The voters have sent one politician after another toObama-IRS threat Washington, to fix what is wrong in the way the government conducts its business, to place restraints on the seemingly unending and growing power of unelected bureaucratic agencies like the EPA, IRS, NSA, and the Department of Education, and to unshackle the restraints placed on small business with countless rules, regulations, fees, and taxes. The results of government ineptness have been fifty years of business as usual with a handful of piss-ant bureaucrats running the country without, oversight and often without judicial review.

From Annapolis to Philadelphia history was made.

Prior to the 1787 Constitutional Convention being called, the newly formed United States, which was organized and governed under the Articles of Confederation (established in 1781), was called upon to resolve trade-related disputes between the states. James Madison prompted the legislature of Virginia to call for a meeting of the states to discuss those very trade problems, because the problem needed to be arbitrated on the federal level. The meeting became known as the Annapolis Convention, however when it was determined there was no such arbitration power granted to the federal government under the Articles of Confederation, the Commissioners president at Annapolis called for a convention of states on September 14, 1786, to “render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the union”. It was one of those oops moments in American history.

So, the United States was founded on the very principal of “a convention of states”. The convention was set for May 14, 1787. The delegates began assembling in Philadelphia, but because they were unable to achieve a reach quorum (A quorum is the number of states that must be present to transact any business) the convention or “congress” didn’t officially begin until May 25, when a total of nine states of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia arrived. It should be noted, to get the full understanding of the convention, the states had declared themselves to be sovereign, independent governments about a decade earlier when the Articles of Confederation was written, and granted these independent governments the authority to hold such a convention.

From history.com and from Federalist Paper #40, we learn that. . .”between Madison’s initial call for the states to send delegates to Annapolis and the presentation of Madison’s Virginia plan for a new government to the convention in Philadelphia, a fundamental shift in the aims of the convention process had taken place. No longer were the delegates gathered with the aim of tweaking trade agreements. A significant number of the men present were now determined to overhaul the new American government as a whole, without a single ballot being cast by the voting public”.

“Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress it is expedient, that on the second Monday of May next a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose OF REVISING THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such ALTERATIONS AND PROVISIONS THEREIN, as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the federal Constitution ADEQUATE TO THE EXIGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT AND THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION.
”. . . it appears, 1st, that the object of the convention was to establish, in these States, A FIRM NATIONAL GOVERNMENT; 2d, that this government was to be such as would be ADEQUATE TO THE EXIGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT and THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION; 3d, that these purposes were to be effected by ALTERATIONS AND PROVISIONS IN THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, as it is expressed in the act of Congress, or by SUCH FURTHER PROVISIONS AS SHOULD APPEAR NECESSARY, as it stands in the recommendatory act from Annapolis; 4th, that the alterations and provisions were to be reported to Congress, and to the States, in order to be agreed to by the former and confirmed by the latter. From a comparison and fair construction of these several modes of expression, is to be deduced the authority under which the convention acted. They were to frame a NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. . .”
From this point forward, this first congress of representatives embarked on the journey to develop a constitution of substance and brings us up to the task at hand to correct the problems in Washington. Part 4 in this series will examine what lies ahead with a Convention of States and what it means to the country.

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