The following was written by Convention of States co-founder Michael Farris and originally published on his Facebook page.
Our official current national debt is $26.7 trillion. The real debt is much higher.
About five years ago, US Senator Tom Coburn calculated that the real debt was at least $140 trillion. We have taken essentially all of the money out of the Social Security Trust Fund and yet don’t count it as debt because according to federal law Congress, has the power to simply terminate the program at any time and owe people nothing.
That kind of accounting shenanigans would land a corporate board in jail.
But our debt is actually unconstitutional in large part because the spending that creates the debt is not authorized by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court decision that created this mess is called United States v. Butler.
In Butler, the question was, can Congress tax and spend for purposes beyond the enumerated powers of Congress?
The Supreme Court spent less than a page discussing the original meaning of the General Welfare Clause—which is the key provision.
James Madison contended that the General Welfare Clause was not a grant of federal spending power for any fool thing Congress desired, but was a limitation of federal spending.
First, the spending must be generally authorized by some other provision of the Constitution. And then such spending must be done for the General Welfare of the country rather than some private or local interest.
He supported this argument from the fact that the General Welfare Clause was taken from the Articles of Confederation. And everyone knows that under the Articles Congress did not have such powers.
The Court, however, relied on Alexander Hamilton, who argued that taxing and spending for the General Welfare was an independent power. The Court noted that others supported Hamilton’s view including George Washington and early Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, who wrote the first major treatise on the Constitution.
However, there is no doubt that the Madison view was overwhelmingly the view of those who ratified the Constitution. It should be controlling.
But it’s worse than that. The Court actually mischaracterized Hamilton’s view.
His view (as explained by Story’s treatise) was that the General Welfare Clause was limited by the first resolution of the Constitutional Convention. That said they were creating a government with powers where the states were without jurisdiction.
Saying it simply, Hamilton believed if the states could tax and spend for a purpose then Congress couldn’t spend on that same purpose.
States can tax and spend for welfare programs. Therefore, whether you follow Hamilton or Madison, Congress cannot spend money for such purposes.
The spending that is bankrupting the country is dominantly in the welfare and social services category.
In fact, the only federal spending that I know of that Hamilton would approve but Madison would disallow is purchases of international land like the Louisiana Purchase and NASA—-the space program.
We would not have a national debt if we followed either Hamilton or Madison’s view.
States could spend what they could afford on these kinds of programs but states cannot rack up debt in the way the federal government does.
We would be spending only what this generation could afford.
We are now taxing our children, grandchildren and generations to come to pay for handouts that allows Congress to buy votes.
This is an outrage both morally and constitutionally.
The Butler decision has done more to undermine the long term stability of this country than any other case.
There will be a point where a generation will rise up and say we are not going to pay taxes to pay for stuff that was consumed generations ago. We didn’t vote to approve these taxes. And remember, no taxation without representation.
And with that, we will collapse into chaos.
Fortunately, there is a solution: an Article V Convention of States. A Convention of States is called and controlled by the states and has the power to propose constitutional amendments that clarify the General Welfare clause and overturn decisions like Butler. These amendments can get our spending under control and restore the limited-government vision the Founders enshrined in the Constitution.
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