Today, the American experiment is another day older and $1 trillion in debt. John Adams said:
“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I will repent in heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”
I’m sure he is repenting. The scripture says, “there are no tears in heaven,” though I wonder.
In signing the Declaration of Independence, the American Founders pledged to each other “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” for the foundations of liberty. Their work and sacrifice created freedom and fortunes for generations of Americans.
Today, however, our politicians spend their time borrowing fortunes and destroying freedom. There is absolutely no honor in what they are doing. The Founders looked beyond themselves, but this generation of profligates have sold out posterity to crushing debt, much of which is wasted on fraud, abuse, and duplicative bureaucracies.
The debt clock currently stands at $27.523 trillion, soon to be $28.5 trillion ($8.5 trillion under four years of President Trump). Twelvemonth trailing deficits will push from $3.2 trillion to $4.2 trillion.
The omnibus bill that Congress just passed is 5,600 pages long. None who voted for or against it read it. There was no time. I won’t detail what is in this massive ill-conceived spending bill. Suffice it to say, I don’t know, and they don’t know either.
What we do know is that it sends fiat money to everyone everywhere. The poor, the rich, corporations, enemies both foreign and domestic, worthless and worthwhile projects alike. The bottom line is it does not matter who or what it goes to or whether Americans get $600 or $2,000. In either case it is money we don’t have, spent largely for things we don’t need or for self-inflicted wounds due to dictatorial and unconstitutional shutdowns.
Like a doped racehorse that is put down in tragedy, this too will end badly. Our economy will ultimately go through wretched and ugly withdrawal if it is not destroyed by the steroid of fake money first. Drug-induced delusions last for a while, but they all end tragically.
I just received my 15th fundraising text of the day for the Georgia Senate races. The messages read: “Liberals will take over the Senate,” “I’m begging you, desperate times,” “We have to stand up to socialism,” “We will lose the Senate,” ad nauseum.
Sadly, neither of these two senators are standing against socialism. Except for a few crying in the wilderness like Sen. Rand Paul, they are all voting for socialism.
As far as spending goes, Republicans are tragically worse than Democrats…so far. If you thought you were voting for fiscal conservatives when you voted for Republicans, you were wrong. This truth is shameful and inexcusable.
President Obama started his first term with $11.1 trillion of debt, and President Trump started with $19.8 trillion. The debt now stands at $27.5 trillion. The Trump administration has nearly doubled in four years what Obama did in eight (sorry, no buts...).
Every administration since Reagan has been worse than the last. Did you hear one comment about debt and spending in the last election cycle?
Let me be frank: the inevitable end of all this is a fiscal disaster. There is only one clear solution, and it is not voting current congressional spendthrifts out. There will just be more to take their place. Our problem is not just the lack of ideological purity in Congress. There are no angels in politics and no saviors to take their place. They are people deeply flawed like the rest of us.
The Founders realized this, and that is why we have a Constitution that allows us to bypass a Congress that does not exercise any modicum of self-control.
Fundraising Text #22: “GOP emergency send $35.00, 500% match!”
The real emergency is what is happening in Washington with GOP support. Congress just voted for an “omnibus” bill (one that spends hundreds of billions on diverse and unrelated topics) that has something for everyone. That is how they get almost everyone to vote for it!
Our two Montana Senators put in the Salish Kootenai Water Compact on page 2,600 or so. Except for those two, who knew? Whether you love or hate the water compact, we need a
transparent process. With socialism, out of control federal power, and legislators spending too much time in Congress, it is the process that is broken.
Tragically, you have people like the 87-year-old Sen. Diane Feinstein struggling with cognitive impairment. She is asking the same questions back-to-back in hearings, forgetting briefings, and struggling with day-to-day tasks. Term limits are needed!
The drafters of our U.S. Constitution knew dangerous threats to our liberty would come and that an imperial Congress would threaten catastrophe. That is why they balanced and paired powers in the Constitution.
Of the most critical of these powers is the process for proposing amendments in Article V. This clause is aptly explained by Samuel Jones, a legislator at the 1787 New York state ratification convention. He said:
“It could not be known to the framers of the constitution whether there was too much power given by it or too little; they therefore prescribed a mode by which Congress might procure more if in the operation of the government it was found necessary; and they prescribed for the states a mode of restraining the powers of the government if, on trial, it should be found that they had given too much.” (emphasis mine)
God only knows that Congress does not need more power! So clearly, the error has been on the part of the states. We have not restrained congressional power.
While Congress has walked all over the American people and mocked the constitutional principles of “few and defined”
powers and the 10th Amendment, the states have done nothing. Rather than take decisive and courageous action, some
legislators and lobbyists spread the unfounded fear that the amendments convention of Article V will go out of control and
destroy our existing Constitution (believe me, the existing Congress is doing that daily).
Unfortunately liberal arguments have influenced unsuspecting legislators. In his executive summary on the Article V convention process, Robert G. Natelson has succinctly described this process and addressed these fears. You can go to my website to read his summary here.
Fundraising Text #28: “PLEASE HELP: David Perdue is the firewall to socialism in America.”
Really? He just voted for $1 trillion of socialism! In the time since I started writing this article, spending has increased by $23 billion (about $3 million a minute).
Through Article V, the Framers gave the states the opportunity and solemn responsibility to check federal abuse. We must use it. The risk of not acting is clear. The United States will flounder, and our experiment in republican government will fail.
When courts or legislators weaken constitutional language such as the commerce or general welfare clause, state legislators have a constitutional responsibility to take corrective action. This was and is the purpose of the Article V amendments convention process.
To this end, the Convention of States Project seeks to address three subject areas by sending a state resolution to Congress to call a “convention for proposing amendments” to draft amendments on the following subjects:- To impose fiscal restraints on the federal government
- To limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government
- To impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress
A convention of states under the authority of Article V and the above limited subject application could draft amendments
such as:
- Requiring a balanced budget
- Requiring a supermajority for tax increases
- Giving the states nullification powers (if 3/5 of the states agree to void a law)
- Requiring a single subject law for all federal legislation (this would end the corruption of omnibus bills, so that all proposed statutes will be transparent and pass on their own merits). The Montana constitution has this requirement.
- An amendment to address the abuse of the commerce clause. This would stop the federal government or its agencies from regulating everything from gophers to grizzly bears, giving away state land, and forcing us to purchase products.
- Term limits on Congress and/or other federal officials.
I have firmly resolved from careful research and study that the only way to keep our American republic is to apply with other states to Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments. After 34 states have applied, the call is mandatory.
I ask you to join me in this endeavor.
Go to conventionofstates.com and sign the petition along with nearly 1.8 million other concerned Americans from every state. There, you can easily and instantly send an email to your state legislators to support our Article V resolution.
It is your state legislator that needs to act to save our republic. This will not come from Washington. Change must come from the states. That is how our Founding Fathers designed it.
I leave you with wise words from John Dickenson and President Ronald Reagan.
“[T]he government of each state is, and is to be, sovereign and supreme in all matters that relate to each state only. It is to be subordinate barely in those matters that relate to the whole; and it will be their own faults if the several states suffer the federal sovereignty to interfere in things of their respective jurisdictions” (emphasis mine). -John Dickinson, author of Fabius Letters, 3rd Letter, and President of the Delaware State Constitutional Convention.
“We can’t depend on Congress to discipline itself… we must rely on the states to force Congress to act on our
[balanced budget] amendment. Fortunately, our nation’s founders gave us the means to amend the Constitution through action of state legislatures… That is the only strategy that will work.” -Ronald Reagan
Please act now to save our republic!
Tom McGillvray
Senate District 23, Billings, Montana
