Big problems require big solutions, and our country has some big problems.
The obvious: Almost unimaginably massive federal debt, annual budget deficits that are as large as the entire federal debt was a bit over a decade ago, an approaching entitlements crisis, and no indication that the federal government plans to deal with any of it.
The not-so-obvious: Rule by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, dependence on the judicial branch to rescue the country from the failures of the legislative and executive branches, and a lack of policy innovation and experimentation at the state level.
Even worse, a Congress that no longer seems capable of addressing problems and an increasing public acceptance of presidential power as the primary source of federal power.
But what has led to this level of dysfunction? For many of us, the answer is simply too much power being concentrated at the federal level.
As designed, our constitutional system delegates specific, limited powers to the federal government and reserves everything else “to the states and to the people” (Ninth Amendment).
But from the 1930s through the 1960s, there was a massive transfer of government power from the states to the federal government. No, the federal government didn’t seize the power—the states willingly sold their powers to the federal government in exchange for money. Money for healthcare, money for education, money for transportation—the federal government was happy to send funds to the states, but there were always strings attached. The result was the states surrendering much of their Ninth and Tenth Amendment power and putting the federal government in charge of just about everything.
Of course, there were other factors involved in the growing power of the federal government. But over time it became almost expected that the federal government was the best place for government power.
As it turns out, that was a disastrous mistake. With the growth of federal power has come a loss of economic liberty, a loss of policy diversity and experimentation, and of course, the coming entitlements cliff, levels of debt that will soon be unserviceable, and a massive federal government that resists every attempt to reduce its size or restrain its power.
The states created this problem, or at the very least, allowed it to happen, and only the states can solve the problem.
That’s why nineteen states have passed resolutions calling for an Article V convention of the states for the purpose of amending the Constitution.
Rather than depending on the federal government to reform itself, for which there is no evidence, the states have the power under Article V to rein in the federal government and impose controls and constraints through constitutional amendments.
It’s a good idea. It is probably the only real solution. And in the next PolicyByte, we’ll discuss arguments for and against an Article V convention.
June 11, 2024