About the crisis of the excessive and ever-enlarging debt of the United States, there is no serious question or debate. The facts are stark and simple. Our current national debt is approximately $15 trillion, which as of the end of 2011 is roughly equal to 100% of our gross domestic product (GDP). In its 2011 Long Term Budget Outlook, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) states the following: “Growing debt would increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget …” So the undeniable reality is this: America is approaching a dangerous economic tipping point. In its comprehensive May 2010 report, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s Solutions Initiative minced no words in stating the severity of the problem: “If we don’t change our current policies, this debt is projected to double in the 2020s and triple in the 2030s.”
And that’s just the acknowledged debt. According to David Walker, CEO of the U.S. Government Accountability Office from 1998 to 2008, “Our Government’s unfunded obligations as of September 30, 2008, totaled approximately $42.9 trillion.” Together with our national debt of $15 trillion, that makes us almost $60 trillion in the hole. To put that in prospective, the GDP of the entire world is around $70 trillion. (To grasp the magnitude of such numbers, consider the following: A billion seconds represents approximately 32 years, a trillion seconds represents approximately 32,000 years).
But here’s the really bad news. The hard but irresistible fact is that Congress is not willing to address and is not able to solve this debt problem. The annual deficits and ballooning debt exist exactly because they were created by politicians in Congress, pressured by constituents and interest groups so that they could please the voters back home and get re-elected to office. Increasing debt is an inherent part of the political process, and any attempt by politicians at reining it in is doomed to failure from the start.
This fact has been proven in several ways: by the inability in November 2011 of the congressional “super-committee,” which was charged with finding ways to cut at least $1.5 trillion from the federal budget, to come up with any proposal whatsoever after nearly four months of what it described as “intense negotiations”; by the failure of the House of Representatives in November 2011 to endorse a balanced budget amendment, falling well short of the necessary two-thirds majority; by the dismal reception, and complete dismissal, of the 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Simpson-Bowles); by Congress’s repeated willingness to increase the national debt limit, when the Treasury and president request it (71 times since 1970); by the failure of the Senate to pass Senator Sam Nunn’s proposal for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution despite a three-year effort in the 1990s; and again in December 2011 when the Senate fell well short of the required two-thirds majority vote on two separate balanced budget amendment proposals.
Since Congress cannot be counted on to address our growing debt crisis, the only hope the American people have of pulling our country back from the brink of financial disaster is to take the matter into their own hands and unite and fight. Our Constitution begins “We the people” not “We the subjects.” In formulating our new form of government, our Founding Fathers struck upon the most revolutionary idea of the modern political age: “citizen sovereignty.” Under our unique form of democracy, power and control was to flow from the bottom to the top. The people themselves were to forever be the ultimate controlling power. Unfortunately the American people’s understanding of their own sovereign rights has faded over time. Now the time has come for the American people to reclaim their sovereignty by forcing Congress to convene a single-issue balanced budget amendment convention.
According to Article V, there are two ways to amend our Constitution: either by getting Congress to pass an amendment and getting it ratified by three-quarters of the states, or by having two-thirds of the state legislatures petition Congress to convene an amendment convention, and then having three-quarters of the states approve the resulting amendment. Since Congress obviously is not capable of passing such an amendment, the solution must come from the people via their respective state legislatures, most of which already operate with balanced budget restrictions. What is needed is for the people in 34 states to demand that their state legislators petition Congress to convene a convention for the explicit and single purpose of passing a balanced budget amendment.
That such a process has a realistic chance of success is illustrated by the fact that 29 states have already passed similar petitions to Congress and only five more would be needed to come to two-thirds. And it is also supported by the fact that The Daily Caller commissioned a poll back in May 2011 that found that 65 percent of the public supports a balanced budget amendment and only 27 percent opposes it. That support only needs to be harnessed and applied, by a public education program in the various states. This is exactly what the newly formed Citizens for a Balanced Budget Amendment Convention (CBBAC) proposes to do.
CBBAC is planning a three-pronged strategy:
- Alert and educate the American people. We would utilize a wide variety of mass communication techniques to alert and educate the American people to the fact that the United States must soon either pass a balanced budget amendment or risk bankruptcy.
- State petitions to Congress. We plan to launch public education programs in 20 targeted states and create a field network of state and local strategists with extensive experience and established networks that would initially educate and mobilize the people to persuade the state legislatures to introduce and support BBA resolutions, and then put public pressure on the legislators to support and pass them.
- Ervin legislation. We plan to publicize legislation introduced by Senator Sam Ervin in 1968 enabling Congress to create a single-issue convention, in order to avoid fear that an amendment convention would be unlimited in the scope of its authority, taking up any amendments that happen to strike its fancy. In addition, it mandates that Congress rapidly set about calling such a convention to order within a year. That bill, S. 2307, should be resurrected under pressure from the same forces mobilizing for the state resolutions, and made an important political issue in the 2012 elections so that it can be passed by both houses of Congress before the end of 2012 or 2013 at the absolute latest.
This is an ambitious agenda, but it the only chance we have of saving America from financial collapse, which the CBO openly admits is a real possibility. The reason the CBO’s report ignores the likelihood of a sudden, unexpected financial meltdown is because it cannot mathematically compute it. But make no mistake about it: Our country is sitting on a financial time bomb and the fuse is lit. The blow-up is not a matter of if, but when.
The real question is this: As Americans, are we going to sit back and surrender our inalienable rights, or are we going to exercise our sovereign power and demand that Congress convene a single-issue balanced budget amendment convention and let the citizens of this great nation decide how best to resolve our escalating debt crisis?
I’m serving as the national project coordinator of CBBAC, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. My email contact is rodneyasmith@cbbac.org. Our budget calls for raising and spending several million dollars over 36 months. We will formally launch our effort once we have secured some initial financial commitments. We hope Daily Caller readers will appreciate the importance and urgency of our task, and we welcome help and support from all quarters as soon as possible. If you want to help us solve our exploding national financial crisis, I urge you to send me your email address today. Thank you!
Rodney A. Smith is a political consultant and fundraiser. He has been the national finance director for the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee and served as treasurer and finance director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He lives in Washington, D.C.