Congress continues to demonstrate its lack of will to address its fiduciary and stewardship responsibilities. It’s time to save our Nation from the financial disaster that will inevitably result from unchecked federal spending and taxes.
January 31, 2022
The Honorable Ken Ivory
House of Representatives
Utah State Legislature
RE: HJR 9 — Calling for a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution
of the United States.
Dear Representative Ivory:
On behalf of the 2.35 million members nationally– and 20,000 in Utah — of the Association of Mature American Citizens (“AMAC” – www.amac.us), we strongly support enactment of HJR 9 and urge its passage by the Utah Legislature for the sake of the citizens of Utah and of all States. In our recent poll of AMAC members, 96 percent responded in favor of an Article V States initiated fiscal discipline Constitutional Amendment.
The enormity of the federal Congress’ and Biden Administration’s spending spree and tax proposals have no regard for neither the financial integrity of our Nation on a global scale and the strength of the dollar as leading international reserve currency, nor the adverse impact on the ability of businesses to create and sustain jobs and strengthen and grow our GDP. In short, the federal Congress continues to demonstrate to all States and American citizens its inability – and genuine lack of will — to address its fiduciary and stewardship responsibilities.
Members of the Congress and the current U.S. Secretary of the Treasury often bemoan the national debt and growing interest on the debt as “unsustainable” – and then do nothing beyond occasional rhetoric. Rapidly rising inflation is especially hurting low- and middle-income Utah and all American families and the impending federal spending and taxing spree, if ever enacted, will accelerate and exacerbate inflation and the financial pain of families – and breed the recurrence of the devastation of stagflation we all had to endure in the late 1970’s. Unless unchecked by the States through Article V, and drawing upon a well know idiom, the Congress and the Biden Administration are “killing the golden goose that lays the golden eggs” with their proposed spending and taxing sprees.
The Founders of our republic and signers of the Constitution recognized the threat of a runaway federal government and the eventual need for reigning it in when it takes actions that threaten the viability of our republican form of government in which the States are the last line of defense and check against federal irresponsibility. They with the other Founders approved the specific provision in Article V to ensure the sovereignty of the States:
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on 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 three fourths thereof,…”
So as you and your colleagues address HJR 9, we strongly urge the Utah Legislature to pass it and thereby undertake a great service to citizens of Utah and all States to move forward to save our Nation from the financial disaster that will inevitably result from unchecked federal spending and taxes. Indeed, we are at that perilous point in which the States are called upon to establish a fiscal integrity “constitutional box” that the Congress and the Executive Branch must honor for the sake of the American people.
Sincerely,
Bob Carlstrom, President
AMAC Action
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I think this would be a big mistake at this time in history when there are so many crazy people in power who want to destroy this country. Trying to amend the constitution now would not be good with so many of the crazy people having access to the process!
The federal government will not police and reform itself. This country needs to return to its Judeo-Christian roots so this country is once again blessed. The only practical way for the federal government to be put in its place is for the states to reassert their Constitutional rights. Convention of States (COS)) is really the only way to do this. The people working on COS are not the crazies! If we do nothing, the left will continue to run roughshod over us “non-elites”. It takes 2/3 of the states to call a COS and 3/4 of the states to approve any amendments. These are high bars to hit. Also the convention can only address issues agreed upon ahead of time. These issues are: 1) Fiscal responsibility for the federal government, 2) Limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government and 3) term limits for federal officials. By law, no other concerns will be addressed.
YES I love good ideas!!
A Convention of States is something that must be approached with extreme caution and trepidation. Once a Convention is called, there is no limit as to what it may consider, and there is precedent for that. The Constitutional Convention was, in fact, called to fix the Articles of Confederation. The members chose instead, of their own volition, to throw out the Articles and write an entirely new Constitution. There is *nothing* in Article V to limit the scope of a Convention of States, and any attempt to do so may very well be ruled unconstitutional. This being the case, we are faced with a number of possibly unpleasant outcomes. Amendments may be passed that many people won’t like (perhaps revoking the Second Amendment), or like the Constitutional Convention they may just decide to throw everything out and start over. Regardless, any changes will have to be approved by 3/4 of the States, but how will the amendments be offered? Will each amendment be offered individually, or like the Constitution, as a package? Almost nobody knows it today, but the original Bill of Rights offered to the States for ratification contained 12 amendments; two were not ratified. thoughtco.com/original-bill-of-rights-and-amendments-3322334The third possibility is if the changes are so radical they fail to achieve the number necessary for ratification. That will mean a lot of time, energy, and probably money, will have been expended for no purpose but generating more national angst.The real solution is for voters to do what they should and vote for people who support term limits. The Framers never dreamed there would be a corps of career politicians, and they also believed that the people were the best safeguard against bad government by using their franchise to vote out bad representatives. The biggest problem is the seniority system means that the longer a politician is in office the more pork he or she can bring home to his or her state or district. This makes it advantageous for a locality to keep reelecting the same person, however detrimental it may be to the country as a whole. This is why polls repeatedly show a huge disparity between the approval ratings people give Congress as a whole (very low) and their own Congressional delegation (usually high to very high).
David, Your comments are highly inaccurate as conventions of states have always been limited in scope and the Federal Convention was not called solely to fix the Articles and in fact 9 states did not even mention them. It was called after the Annapolis Convention in 1786 could not fix the Articles and it was decided something more would need to be done. Here are the founding documents that will set the record straight for you csac.history.wisc.edu/document-collections/the-constitutional-convention/convention-delegates/ And the only way to get term limits is at a convention as it will require an amendment and Congress is not about to propose a demise to their own careers, now are they?? Amendments must be ratified one by one not as a package. States vote as states thus the name convention of states so a convention limited by the legialstion that was passed to trigger a convention sets the only subject matter agree upon for the convention and state are treated equally-by the way there are 5 or 6 Article V groups existing today and none of the applications allow the Bill of Rights to be amendmended
What a crock! Read a book for God’s sake…. A HISTORY BOOK!
I support a Convention of States. Doing nothing does not help. It only gives the leftists more time to destroy our nation and the Constitution. If we know how to fix the problems in a way set forth in the Constitution by our founding fathers, who perceived this possibility in the future due to the nature of man, then let’s use this peaceful approach. Please explain to me how the leftists would/could hijack a Convention of States?
I’m afraid I don’t trust the people in charge of the system. I hate saying it , but I think that way too many of them are criminals
I am NOT in-agreement with a Convention of the States. It would be too likely and risky that the leftists would hijack it and destroy the Constitution that they so obviously and flagrantly ignore anyway. TOO MUCH RISK… conservatives unfortunately always seem to be behind the ball, and a CoS would be much too risky.
More of the same here… See my comment on SC…
Bill… :~)